Re: Auto-Update Experience

Hi Brian,

Brian Smith wrote:
> To maintain backward compatibility with my own module I am compiling 
> against NetBeans 3.4 openide JAR files instead of the 4.0 JAR files. The 
> changes Jesse made seem to break modules at build time but if they are 
> built against 3.4 then they will still run on dev builds.

You are right and you can still do it. I just don't want to make the 
installation instructions too complicated. Most of our new users are 
interested in how they can simply run MDR with NetBeans. And behind MDR 
they usually see MDR Explorer, because that is the only visible part of 
MDR. Since this or the next week the new incompatible looks will be 
commited to the CVS, MDR Explorer will stop being compatible with 3.4. 
You are right that the rest of the MDR should work and we will not 
forbid using it with 3.4 if it works. I just don't want to mention all 
the possibilities in the installation instructions to not confuse people...

> Besides openidex/looks, has anything else changed? Maybe it is possible 
> to just branch MDR Explorer instead of all of MDR?

I don't see anything wrong on branching the whole MDR (and it's already 
done anyway). You can still use the MDR from maintrunk if it runs with 
3.4. We can also merge all the changes into 3.4 branch from time to time 
if we are confident that the changes are compatible with 3.4.
Martin