Is there a Team Foundation Server GUI client that has visual branches?

visual-studio-2010 visual-studio tfs

12,767

Solution 1

Bourgeon. Available for Visual Studio 2013, 2015, 2017, 2019.

https://marketplace.visualstudio.com/items?itemName=StefanLober.Bourgeon

Obviously the author is a git user who was forced to use TFS.

Solution 2

You can use the branching and "track changes" visualizations. See the blog post below for details:

http://www.edsquared.com/2010/03/17/Branching+And+Track+Changes+Visualization+In+TFS+2010+Is+Awesome.aspx

Solution 3

You can View the Branch Hierarchy of a Team Project by go to Source Control Explorer, click the branch from which you want to begin to explore your branch structure after that, Click the File menu, point to Source Control, point to Branching and Merging, and then click View Hierarchy.

View the Branch Hierarchy of a Team Project

12,767

Author by

ruffin

You should take JSLint's advice. ;^) You should also use a Markdown editor for pros. And you could peruse the blog. You're welcome to take any code snippet I've sole-source posted on StackOverflow.com and consider it to be dual-licensed under the MIT license as found at that URL on May 28, 2015 for you, and as a rights reserved copyrighted source when I use it in other projects. For those snippets, if you want to attribute, that's great. Just know that you're using them at your own risk. I'm now going to plug... TagifyJS, a zero-dependency, single-file, JavaScript tag widget library My Twitter handle, because everyone else is doing it: @r_ffin My fave Skeet comment. How to jslint on localhost My favorite [personal] project, though [hopefully] far from my best code, SQLDbSharp, a YesSQL database engine pitifully kludged together using C#

Updated on June 06, 2022

Comments

ruffin almost 2 years

I would like to find a GUI'd client that shows TFS branch history like I'm used to viewing in some popular git clients. Here's a great picture from SourceTree, though SmartGit does every bit as well.

See how awesome it is to see your checkin history? Even better, you can pick two checkins and see a diff (list of files you can select to see diffs for the selected file) of what's changed between any two.

Does an app like that exist for TFS?

Note: I did find this question, whose title sounds close: Standalone GUI client for TFS 2010 Source Control

I'm pretty sure by "GUI" there the answers just mean "the GUI you already likely have if you're running VS2010" aka "not the command line". I didn't see a good solution for getting this sort of branch mapping and quick change comparison.

Or perhaps I've missed it and such a map/GUI is already in TFS on VS?

EDIT: Adding picture of File menu to Branching and Merging. I don't seem to have the option M.Radwan mentions.
ruffin over 11 years

So if I don't have those options, I'm not on a branch, perhaps? (See image added to question)
Mohamed.Radwan -MVP over 11 years

Yes, you have to select a branch so this option can be available
ruffin over 11 years

Sorry, I mean if the project I've selected is, itself, not a branch. I assumed we would have branched our "spike" of the development codebase, but if I don't see these options, then am I to assume there's no parent/hierarchy for the code? I'm going to assume yes for now and play with a trivial solution later today. Thanks.
Iman Mahmoudinasab over 8 years

link to reference View where and when changesets have been merged
Jeroen almost 8 years

Thanks for sharing, but I already knew about this feature. Not sure why OP originally accepted this answer as the solution, because as far as I can tell / am concerned it does not answer the question: this visualization tells you nothing about checkin history / commits that pull changes from one branch into another.
ruffin over 7 years

@Jeroen Accepted mainly out of frustration that most answers when I've asked elsewhere completely misunderstood my question, and at least this is visual. Low bar, I know, and I actually think the "right" answer is that there isn't such a tool. If you've got a better visualization tool, I'd be happy to move the check. Jim's answer isn't bad -- check that link, though I think it's changeset-centric. But neither are near as nice as the tools I'm used to on git. If I was still using TFS, I'd be tempted to steal a C# git client & write one myself.
Stephen Kennedy almost 6 years

Stefan Lober wrote in a comment-as-an-answer: "Thank you, Malcolm O, for mentioning Bourgeon. I planned to include some new features and fixes along with VS 2017 support. This is taking longer than I expected (this being only a free time project), but it should be finished in a few weeks."
Malcolm O almost 6 years

Wonderful to hear Stefan. I love your plugin - it makes following complex branch history a breeze. I really appreciate the time you put into it. Let me know if you need a tester.
ruffin about 5 years

Now says "Works with Visual Studio 2013, 2015, 2017, 2019". Looks like it's time to give this a shot! Thanks.
ruffin almost 4 years

Appears to be missing two key features I'd want in a visualizer: A diff of the pending changes to the most recent changeset and the ability to diff any two selected changesets. Am I missing something obvious in there?