Multiple LinksControls on the work item form

Question

For a heavily customized process template, I'm trying to implement multiple specialized LinksControls on the front page ("Details") of the work item form (TFS2017.Update1).

What I have done is the following:

<Group Label="Derived">
  <Control Type="LinksControl" Name="Derived">
    <LinksControlOptions ViewMode="List">
      <ListViewOptions GroupLinks="true" />
      <LinkFilters>
        <WorkItemLinkFilter Type="RE.DerivedFrom-Forward" />
      </LinkFilters>
      <WorkItemTypeFilters>
        <Filter WorkItemType="Product Requirement" />
        <Filter WorkItemType="Customer Requirement" />
      </WorkItemTypeFilters>
      <Columns>
        <Column Name="System.State" />
        <Column Name="System.ChangedDate" />
        <Column Name="System.Links.Comment" />
      </Columns>
    </LinksControlOptions>
  </Control>
</Group>
<Group Label="Usings">
  <Control Type="LinksControl" Name="Usings">
    <LinksControlOptions ViewMode="List">
      <ListViewOptions GroupLinks="true" />
      <LinkFilters>
        <WorkItemLinkFilter Type="RE.Uses" />
      </LinkFilters>
      <WorkItemTypeFilters>
        <Filter WorkItemType="Product Property" />
        <Filter WorkItemType="Product Requirement" />
        <Filter WorkItemType="Customer Requirement" />
      </WorkItemTypeFilters>
      <Columns>
        <Column Name="System.State" />
        <Column Name="System.ChangedDate" />
        <Column Name="System.Links.Comment" />
      </Columns>
    </LinksControlOptions>
  </Control>
</Group>
<Group Label="Hierarchy">
  <Control Type="LinksControl" Name="Hierarchy">
    <LinksControlOptions ViewMode="List">
      <ListViewOptions GroupLinks="true" />
      <LinkFilters>
        <WorkItemLinkFilter Type="System.LinkTypes.Hierarchy" />
      </LinkFilters>
      <Columns>
        <Column Name="System.State" />
        <Column Name="System.ChangedDate" />
        <Column Name="System.Links.Comment" />
      </Columns>
    </LinksControlOptions>
  </Control>
</Group>

When I open the form, some of the groups are empty, although there definitely are other work items linked using the link types in the filter:

To verify, that the links really exist I checked on the "all links" page:

When I hit the refresh button other links are shown. Which seems to be quite random.

Is there an error in my XML? Or is there any restriction to the WebLayout and usage of LinksControl that I'm not aware of? Or is this a known bug in TFS?

What's the result if you add a new link in your workitem type, did it shown correctly ? — PatrickLu-MSFT, Nov 15 '17 at 09:37
Yes. But only until I close and reopen the form or hit refresh. — Flex, Nov 15 '17 at 10:06
You code looks ok. Could not reproduce your issue on my side by adding new link control on the default work item template. Have no idea how heavily your process template customized. Not sure the issue is related to other part code or not. Besides you could also try to use ` — PatrickLu-MSFT, Nov 23 '17 at 05:02

score 0 · Accepted Answer · answered Nov 24 '17 at 13:01

This seems to be a version specific bug(?) in TFS 2017.1. I copied the collection to a fresh TFS 2018 install and now it looks like I expected it:

Not a perfect answer. But a solution I can live with, since we are about to upgrade to TFS 2018 anyway.

Multiple LinksControls on the work item form

1 Answers1