When preparing the release of updated Review Assistant and Code Compare versions, our main objective was to support new Visual Studio 2019.
In Code Compare, integration to Visual Studio 2019 works as follows: during installation, you can integrate Code Compare as a diff tool with TFS. In addition, we fixed private classes displaying in Difference Explorer for C# structure comparison and made minor UI changes.
New Review Assistant also supports DevOps 2019. As well, we took into account a number of suggestions about pre-commit review and added the possibility of using an iterative review for shelvesets.
Iterative review for pre-commit
An iterative review can be currently used for shelvesets. You can easily view file versions from different shelvesets in the same review, as well as write comments the same way as in a simple review.
Two modes of opening Work Item
We supported two modes of opening a work item the same way as in Visual Studio: both in Visual Studio editor and in a web browser by default. For Visual Studio 2017 and lower, the opening mode is automatically detected depending on the studio settings. Visual Studio 2019 supports only the new behavior – opening in a web browser.
Auto-detection of renamed/moved files
Now, in Code Review Board, there is no need to select an added file with a new name and a deleted file with an old name. A renamed file is displayed as a single one with a new and an old names in square brackets as in Visual Studio. With auto-detection of renamed files, comparison is much more convenient and visual. Tracking renamed files is supported for all version control systems including shelvesets in TFS.
“Use single diff-tool window for comparison” option and a new tab Options
Since the previous release, which introduced the possibility of viewing file changes “in a single window”, considering all the suggestions, we added a specific option “Use single diff-tool window for comparison”, as well as combined the Version Control and Diff Tool tabs into one. With this option, you can disable the behavior of comparison being opened “in a single window”. Disabling this option will be useful for those who want to view changes made to multiple files in a review simultaneously.
Other improvements
- The Status column is added to the Reviews Status report
- Minor UI improvements in the Reports tab of Review Assistant
- Displaying of an active user on the Users tab and an active project in Projects is significantly improved
- Possibility of adding comments without linking them to a revision for Perforce repositories
- Minor UI improvements in Code Review Board
