Hidden Gems in TFS–Part 4 Finding status in Source Control

In this series of blog posts I like to highlight some features of TFS/Visual Studio that people seem to overlook. In my day to day job I often see that people don’t know about certain feature that are available in Team Foundation Server, Visual Studio or some of the Powertools.

Some features are available as a Powertool. These can be downloaded from here

Earlier Posts

• Hidden Gems in TFS – Part 1 Annotate
• Hidden Gems in TFS – Part 2 Work Item State Diagrams
• Hidden Gems in TFS – Part 3 Editing multiple work items at the same time (Bulk Edit)

In this part…….

Finding status in Source Control

If you are the administrator for TFS it is useful to check if files are checked out on a regular bases. This keeps your TFS tidy and clean. If you are a user of TFS in a team of other developers it is good to know who has checked out certain files.

Surely you can see this in the Source Control Explorer

A big disadvantage is that you cannot see this for subfolders.

When you installed the powertools, there is an easier way to do this.

In Source Control Explorer, go to File | Source Control | Find in Source Control | Status

Fill in the form that pops up. Use $/ for all files in all Team Projects or type a Team Project Name like $/TEAMPROJECTNAME and press Find.

Now all checked out files are shown

Have Fun !

If you have any tips for another hidden gem? Please let me know on twitter @renevo