Is there an adequate replacement for Source Control Explorer?

Question

I use TFS 2008 for source control with Visual Studio 2008 at my office.

I have previously used Subversion (and even source safe) and found it much easier to find information than using the panel "Source Control Explorer" inside visual studio.

Are there any better designed alternatives to be able to do my common source control tasks?

By common, here is my general definition:

• Find changes made to a file, who made them and what part (including branches that the change was part of)

• Find files changed between 2 changesets

• Find branch hierarchy and changesets between branches
• Find if there have been any changes to my file since my last get latest version

Answer 1

You can use TFS SVN Bridge, and then get back to SVN style.

http://www.codeplex.com/SvnBridge

Answer 2

Find changes made to a file, who made them

You can install the TFS 2008 Power Tools which give you Windows Explorer integration for your Workspaces (local working folders). Here you can click on a Windows folder or file and View History. Latest version: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/teamsystem/bb980963.aspx

...and what part (including branches that the change was part of) Understanding what branches a changeset moved to is not available in TFS 2008. This is basically following the merge path of a changeset and will be (is) available in TFS 2010. That said, there is the Annotate ("blame window") available via Windows Explorer right click in TFS power tools and Visual Studio via Solution Explorer or Source Control Explorer. Annotate window will show you where individual blocks in a file came from - aka which changeset and by whom.

Find files changed between 2 changesets

Not sure this I understand what you mean here. You can look at the changes included in a changeset (and between the revisions of files in that changeset), but seeing the files changed "between" 2 changesets doesn't really make much sense in my mind. Maybe you could describe this one a little more in depth.

Find branch hierarchy and changesets between branches

Branch visualization and Changeset visualization through that branch hierarchy is available in TFS 2010. Unfortunately, the story in TFS 2008 is left to convention. You can see where 1 particular branch comes from by right clicking it and selecting merge. The target of the merge will default to the source of the original branch.

Find if there have been any changes to my file since my last get latest version

Definitely. This is one thing that most don't understand about TFS and for good reason - it's kinda done for you in simple scenarios. You may notice that the Compare button is generally a "split button". That's because TFS tracks which version of a file you had when you started editing. "Compare to Workspace Version" will compare your local changes with the version you had when you started making those changes. "Compare to Latest" will compare to the latest version of that file (in the branch you're working in).