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Welcome to TFS Work Item Tracking Custom Controls home page!


Custom controls is a feature in TFS SP1 using which customer developed controls can be hosted in work item form. Those controls can implement various business logics or add additional functionality to work with the workitemform. Here is the info on how to build custom controls: http://blogs.msdn.com/narend/archive/2006/10/02/How-to-use-Custom-Controls-in-Work-Item-Form.aspx

Our blogs:

Naren Datha: http://blogs.msdn.com/narend
Mathias Olausson: http://olausson.net/blog

Why this project?


There are many functionalities that customers want to have in a work item form, and most can be build with using this feature and sometimes by supplementing with an addin. If you think a generic control can be built to address needs out there, you can help build it or suggest that idea for someone else to build it here.

Implemented Controls

The following controls are implemented in the current release:


Other custom control ideas:


Below are some ideas to start with and many of these come from customers in Work Item Tracking msdn forum . Please use the user forum to share your comments or ideas on what controls might help you. More details on these here .

Difficulty Level: Easy
  • Checkbox control: Basic checkbox control to view and edit Boolean field values
  • Formattor control: A control to that formats dates and floting point field values to given format for display

Difficulty Level: Medium
  • Math expression control: Control to evaluate an expression based on value of other fields and display result. Example: Show effective priority which is function of Priority & Severity.
  • Color control: Will show values in different forecolor and backcolors based on expression evaluation as in above control. Example usage is to highlight a value in red on highly important item or customer
  • Button control: Similar to web site control above, but will call a web service and pass work item data.

Difficulty Level: Hard
Last edited Sep 23 2007 at 4:47 AM  by hayderc, version 10
Comments
bwechner wrote  Oct 8 2007 at 11:56 PM  
Here's one to add to your list. A treeview combo box identical to the current IterationPath and AreaPath controls which supports security rules (i.e. readonly for all but a select group of users). Alas the IterationPath control currently implemented doesn't support rules and MS themselves recommended writing a custom control as a workaround. See http://forums.microsoft.com/MSDN/ShowPost.aspx?PostID=2222691&SiteID=1. I have written a treeview combobox control quickly already (albeit for use in an Excel Add-in I've written) and will look quickly at if and how I might be able to use it here. But at the very least let's add it to the list of custom control ideas!

mezcaholic wrote  Dec 26 2007 at 11:12 PM  
I second the motion for a treeview control that would supplant the existing area/iteration control. We really need security on the Iteration field at least. Is this something that could be done with a custom control? Why has this not been added to the list?

MOlausson wrote  Jan 8 at 12:39 PM  
In TFS 2008 you can control the security on both areas and iterations. With that in mind, do you still see this as a useful control?

sgadge wrote  Mar 5 at 2:22 AM  
I developed a data-bound drop down list control. Let me know how to include that here.

marmot4 wrote  Jun 4 at 6:15 PM  
I would love to see a data-bound drop down list control in which you configure where the data comes from (with a sql connection string and a sql statement perhaps?).

I would also love to see a drop down list control which would contain Work Item Types. Then you could add a Scenario field to the Task wit for example and not have to use Links.

Updating...