How to add an image to a TFS work item; as an imag

Question

Our team is in the process of begining a project which is being managed using TFS. Several requiremens which existed only in Word documents are being migrated to TFS work items. The Word documents contain various diagrams and images which we need included in the work item, specifically under the 'Details' and 'Analysis' tabs. The problem is that images cannot be pasted into these tabs as images.

The only option to add images to the work item appears to be as an attachment.

Could someone confirm this?

Any assistance is appreciated.

Answer 1

Using the stock workitem this is true. You can extend the workitem display within the team explorer with your own custom controls that could display an attachment inline, but this won't be a small effort.

There are samples and guidance here

Answer 2

We write our Word documents, save them as filtered HTML and copy file and folder containing the images onto the server hosting the TFS. We then open the html from the server version in a browser and copy/paste requirements into the work items description field. Is a workaround, would be much nicer being able to directly copy/paste images into a workitem, but at least it works.

Answer 3

You can change the text boxes to accept HTML, but that may still require the image to be hosted elsewhere.

HowTo: http://msmvps.com/blogs/vstsblog/archive/2009/01/11/using-rich-html-descriptions-instead-of-plain-text.aspx

It may also be best to just link to the existing document. We have to do this for now, because we have a large repository of existing documentation that no-one wants to bother converting.

Answer 4

The below steps worked for our team:

1- I added a *.png file as an attachment

2- Opened that *.png file within IE from the attachments tab

NOTE: Once the image opens in IE the address should be something like the below:

http://tfs.mysite.com:8080/tfs/defaultcollection/WorkItemTracking/v2.0/AttachFileHandler.ashx?FileID=1234567&FileName=TFS-12345-QA.PNG

If the address has "c:\etc" which is locally stored then it will not work. The image has to be network accessible so other team members may see it in TFS.

3- Right click the image and select copy

4- Now within TFS under the "History" tab where you're entering your notes paste the image

5- Save the workitem and that is it.

Cheers!