Recently I have seen quite a few posts at MSDN newgroups related to merge history. Since History Sidekick provides several helpful features in that regard, I thought it is worth a post to popularize it a bit.
In History Sidekick different history views are provided on per item basis; it is possible to view all item checkins, branches tree, merges history to/from item, merge candidates or labels list. The features related to merge are branches tree, merges history and merge candidates.
Item branches history view is similar to data displayed in TFS Source Control Explorer (select item, righ-click it, choose "Properties...", choose "Branches" tab). The properties available for selected branch are branch creation date, branch creation changeset and server path, branch source changeset and server path. Using "Branches" for selected item user should be able easily view the item branches tree and any parent/child branches item might be related in (deleted branches are marked with special icon). Why not required, that data is often useful for identifying what merges are required. Here is branches view screenshot (click on it for larger image):
Merges history view does not exist in TFS UI (only alternative is tf command-line client merges command). The data displayed in view includes list of all merges performed to selected item and list of merges performed from selected items. Information in list includes source/target branch server path, source and target changesets, user and date of merge. When selected item is file, in addition to viewing merge data it is possible to compare source and merged file versions by right clicking on corresponding list item. Below is merges history view screenshot (click on it for larger image):
Merge candidates view does not exist in TFS UI (only alternative is tf command-line client merge command with candidates flag). User may select merge source path (baseless merge is not supported) and view items that have changes that may be merged to selected item; when item is folder, there may exist multiple files with changes to merge. For every source file list of changesets to merge with type of change, creation date and user is displayed; it is possible to compare selected change with latest version of selected item. Below is merges candidates view screenshot (click on it for larger image):
Merge candidates view and merges history view allow user to view data both before and after merge operation. Using merge candidates view it is possible to check whether there are changes to be merged from any related source branch and what those changes exactly. That kind of information may be very important in order to ensure that all changes were merged between branches; it is the main idea behind that functionality.
By using merge history view it is possible to identify all merges performed to/from specific item and view what changes were propagated in merge. The possible usage scenario would be a bug fix that was not propagated during the merge; in that view it would be easy to find in what merge it should have been contained and what went wrong.
If you have other scenarios that those functions could be used for or features you are missing in regard to merge, please write up a comment (or contact me through a blog if you are audience shy :).