Adding Custom Controls to a Work Item Type

Last week I posted about the availability of the Visual Studio 2005 SP1 beta. I mentioned that the ability to add custom controls to a Work-Item Type was perhaps my favorite feature added in SP1. Well it looks like Naren Datha has already posted a tutorial which explains how to take advantage of this new functionality. Sweet!

Naren has listed some great ideas I hadn't thought of yet for using this functionality. Another one I heard (via Eric Lee) would be to add a custom Windows Media Player control which could be used to playback test repros or even requirements storyboards. I really can't wait until SP1 is officially released...! Please don't forget to log your feedback about the SP1 beta if you find bugs or have suggestions. You can log your feedback using the Connect site, which also happens to be the place you can download the beta from.

Comments

• Anonymous
  October 15, 2006
  Hi i am currently working on a Work Item Tracking Website for TFS , something like the TeamPlain Web Access. I created a solution which lists all work item , by a user selected query and project and me able to modify and create new work item form the web. The problem is that i have to hard code all fields in order to create this. I was wondering if the new custom controls would save me the trouble of hard codding the form Element (Work Item Type Definition Schema)  . Thanks

• Anonymous
  October 16, 2006
  Hi Ian - unfortunately I don't believe that the custom controls would get past this problem. I haven't tried a Web interface like what you're trying but have you checked to see if there's an iterator which you can just iterate through instead of hard coding everything directly? Another suggestion would be to post your query to one of the Team System forums to get in touch with a subject-matter expert who can help you further. See http://forums.microsoft.com/MSDN/default.aspx?forumgroupid=5&siteid=1. Hope that helps! - Brian