TFS Labels made easy with Labels Sidekick
The latest release of Team Foundation Sidekicks application includes brand new tool, Labels Sidekick. The current post explores functionality bundled in that tool and how it may help you in working with TFS labels.
Main screen of Sidekicks consists of two panes (in manner similar to other Sidekicks UI).
Left pane allows one to specify set of criteria and search labels according to the criteria specified. The labels are searchable by the following criteria:
- Label name (name may include wildcards * and ?)
- User name - name of the user who last modified the label
- Project name - name of Team Project on which label was created
- Change date range - change date is the date of the label on which label was last modified
Once the user specifies the criteria and hits Search, the list search panel will display found labels. For label selected in the list, right pane displays three tabs with extended label information.
First tab shows label properties and labeled items properties sortable list (with item path, type, changeset, and changeset date columns). It is possible to select item and either un-label it or compare labeled file version with latest file version
Second tab displays all changesets labeled. As TFS does to allow labeling changeset, but rather items versions (files or folders), the data displayed are union of all changesets of labeled items. For example, if you have labeled files foo.cs (changeset 943), bar.cs (changeset 944), dot.cs (changeset 945) and net.cs (changeset 944), list of changesets displayed will include changesets 943, 944 and 945.
In the similar fashion, the third tab displays all work items associated with changesets labeled (that is, if work item is associated with one or more changesets, it appears once in the list).
The data displayed for selected label is supposed to provide encompassing insight into label's contents, whether by version control items labeled, changesets or work items.
Additionally, Label Sidekick makes it relatively easy to compare two labels contents (again, in version control item, changeset or work item resolution).
Clicking "Compare selected with latest" tool button at the top of the labels list opens up the form that allows one to compare selected label items contents with latest version of items in repository. "Compare Labels" form has two panes and labeled items are displayed in left pane whereas latest version items are displayed in the right pane. The items that have different version, or version in only one pane are marked with different background color, while the folders are highlighted with different foreground color.
Thus it is easy to see what files have changed after being labeled; by right clicking the selected file it is possible to compare two versions. Also by clicking on "View Relative History" one may see the versions created between labeled and latest version.
If there are two labels selected in search labels list, "Compare two labels" tool button becomes enabled and it is possible to open "Compare Labels" form for selected labels. In that case the form will include two additional tabs, "Changesets" and "Work Items", that contain changesets and work items of two compared labels and thus user may compare more than only labeled files.
There may be numerous additional scenarios of labels usage in TFS; the label is lightweight and very versatile tool for identifying code in repository and there's been lots of creative labels usage recipes. If you feel that your scenario deserves to be known and handled by Sidekick, please let us know.