In TFS when you merge branch A to branch B and checkin, you get a single changeset on B (typically with a comment like "merged A->B").
This means B doesn't have any of the checkin history from A. So if someone created a new file on branch A, you can't tell who created it from branch B. And if someone updated a file on A, you can't tell who did the update from branch B.
Is there any way to see this kind of detailed changeset history across branches? Some kind of power toy, or third party tool, or anything?
Update: The TFS Power Toy tfpt history /followbranches tool does not "expand merges," it only "expands branches" and therefore doesn't solve this problem.
Find a changeset by IDIn Source Control Explorer, press Ctrl + G. The Go to Changeset dialog box appears. Type the number of the changeset and choose OK.
In Source Control Explorer, select an item, open its shortcut menu, and then choose View History.
You can use either the web portal or Team Explorer to view the history of a work item or find work items based on the contents of the History field. When you run a search on the contents of the History field, it returns only work items that have changes recorded in that field.
Right now 'tf merges' and 'tf merges /f:detailed' provide the most complete merge tracking information. However, they are command-line only. And the only 3rd party tool I know of that attempts to provide a GUI is TFS Sidekicks.
This gets a lot easier in TFS 2010. See screenshots at:
TFS 2010 will include support for this.
Brian Harry talks about it in this presentation.
You will now be able to see where a change originated and who made it after the change has been merged to a different branch.
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