How to: View File Changes Using Annotate

You can annotate a version-controlled file to see who made changes and what changes they made in all previous versions of the file.

Required Permissions

To perform these procedures, you must have the Read permission set to Allow. For more information, see Team Foundation Server Permissions.

To annotate a file

  1. On the View menu, click Other Windows, and then click Source Control Explorer.

  2. In Source Control Explorer, go to the version of the file you want to annotate, right-click, and select Annotate.

    An annotation window displays the annotated file.

    The annotation information appears to the left of the text that was changed in each file version. The annotation information includes:

    • Changeset number or Local if you have pending changes in your local workspace

      Note

      If you click the changeset number link, the changeset details dialog box appears.

    • Name of person who made the change

    • Date

    If you hover over the annotation information, the following information appears:

    • Changeset: The changeset number.

    • Owner: The name of person who made the change.

    • Date: The changeset created date.

    • Lines: The line numbers where the changes were made.

    • Comment: The changeset check-in comment.

  3. As an option, right-click the annotation information to display the context menu.

    • Select View Changeset Details… to open the changeset details dialog box for the current changeset.

    • Select View History to open the History window.

    • Select Compare With Previous Version… to open the Differences window and view the file differences side by side.

      If you have pending changes in your local workspace you can right-click on the Local annotation information and Select Compare With Workspace Version (<server name>)… to view file differences in the Differences window.

    • Select Annotate This Version to open a new Annotate window that displays annotation information for the selected version and all previous versions of the file.

    • Select Get This Version to download the selected version of the file to your local workspace.

    • Select Stop Annotation to stop the annotation.

See Also

Tasks

How to: Compare Two Files

How to: Resolve Conflicts Between Two Files