Upgrading XOJO, Best practice

Getting Started
1

I licensed XOJO last month, and now 2020r2 is here! I won’t be jumping on it right away, I’ll give it some time to get the inevitable bugs simmered down. But it does raise a question in my mind. Can you have multiple versions of XOJO installed? What is the best practice for moving forward? Uninstall the old and install the new? Install side by side? I want to keep a working environment, but I would love to play with all the fancy new features too!

2

I treat Xojo updates like every other update of a component.

  • Of course, you can use multiple versions of Xojo at the same time. I have a Xojo folder where multiple versions reside.
  • Usually, I only update to a new Xojo version when I start a new version of my app. With this I find all the warts when working with the new Xojo version. I’m making an exception this time because I really want to prepare for ARM.
  • Don’t update in a hurry. Don’t update and then make a new version of your app without testing.
3

You can have multiple copies of Xojo installed. I have… lots. Mostly because of Xojo’s poor plugin management though, so I actually have multiple copies of the same version.

As for when to upgrade, my strategy is to keep my stable versions married to a Xojo version. You don’t know what you don’t know. So I’ll switch to the newest Xojo version when my next beta cycle comes around.

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4

As you regularly can’t open a project saved with a newer version in the old IDE you MUST ensure to have a copy of the old version (somewhere). If you are using Git it is good practice to do a commit of your projects before you will switch to a new version. Otherwise something like this will happen sooner or later:

  • As usually (w/o you changing that) the newest Xojo version is the default version, it is only a question of time when you are unintentionally opening an older version in the new IDE (as you want to copy some code for instance).
  • Their is a high risk that when closing Xojo you might just save all projects and your old version will be saved in the new format. Without a backup you won’t easily (if at all) move back to the older version.

Managing the different flavours of Xojo is one thing, but pay attentention how you are structuring your projects (for instance put the release name in the folder names which is containing your projects).