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View file changes using annotate

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Azure DevOps Services | Azure DevOps Server 2020 | Azure DevOps Server 2019 | TFS 2018 - TFS 2013

Visual Studio 2019 | Visual Studio 2017 | Visual Studio 2015 | Visual Studio 2013

You can annotate a file to learn who made changes and what changes they made in all earlier versions of the file.

Prerequisites

To perform these procedures, you must have the Read permission set to Allow. For more information, see Default TFVC permissions.

To annotate a file

  1. On the menu bar, choose View, Other Windows, Source Control Explorer.

  2. In Source Control Explorer, go to the version of the file you want to annotate, open its shortcut menu, and then choose Annotate.

    The Annotated window displays the annotated file.

    Each annotation appears to the left of the text that was changed and displays:

    • Changeset number, or Local if you have pending changes in your local workspace. To get more information about the changeset, choose the changeset number.

    • The name of the person who made the change.

    • Date.

    When you move the pointer over an annotation, the following information appears:

    • Path: The path of the changeset.

    • Changeset: The changeset number.

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

    • Change: The type of change.

    • Date: The date of the changeset.

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

    • Comment: The changeset check-in comment.

  3. You can open the shortcut menu for an annotation, and then choose:

    • Changeset Details to display, in Team Explorer the Changeset Details page.

    • View History to open the History window.

    • Compare With Previous Version to compare, in the Diff window, the version you are examining with the previous version.

      If you have pending changes in your local workspace you can open the shortcut menu for the Local annotation information and choose Compare With Workspace Version (<server name>) to compare, in the Diff window, the version you are examining with the version you checked out from the server.

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

    • Track Changeset: to see to which branches the changeset has been merged. For more information, see View where and when changesets have been merged.

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