[ecf-dev] ECF 0.9.3 API refactoring release

[Scott Lewis <slewis@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Hi Folks,

ECF 0.9.3 stable (the 'API refactoring' release) is now available here:

http://www.eclipse.org/ecf/downloads.php

The new and noteworthy, detailing the API changes is here:

http://www.eclipse.org/ecf/NewAndNoteworthy_0.9.3.html

Get the source/project set files here:

http://www.eclipse.org/ecf/dev_resources.php

I think great improvement was made with this refactoring...resulting in 
 a smaller code size for core plugins (about 1/2 the size...150K->80K), 
ability for the core plugins to run on small CDC 1.0/Foundation 1.0 
execution environments, much cleaner and more consistent APIs, much 
better compliance with API guidelines and requirements, and much more 
complete documentation for the APIs i.e. see

http://www.eclipse.org/ecf/org.eclipse.ecf.docs/api/

I'm convinced that this will serve as a much stronger base to work from 
for our upcoming ECF application and UI work.

Thanks particularly go to Remy Suen, but also Erkki Lindpere and Pete 
Mackie for helping with patches, bug fixes, API suggestions, UI 
work/artwork, more/better test code, and new build/deploy with improvements.

PLEASE NOTE:  This is a backward-compatibility breaking release 
(hopefully last one for a while) as a number of classes changed 
packages, extension points renamed, etc.  It will require a *refactoring 
and recompile* of apps written to earlier ECF APIs.  See the n&n for 
details about changes.

Also, if you have 0.9.2 or previous install of ECF it's necessary to 
uninstall the previous releases before installing 0.9.3.  See the 
downloads.php page if you need to do this.

NOTE ALSO:  The ECF generic server is currently at an older 
(incompatible) version ~0.9.0 and will soon have to be updated to 0.9.3 
to allow new clients to connect to it.  I'm anticipating updating that 
server with 0.9.3 code on 11-18-2006.  Prior to that old clients (<= 
0.9.2) will work with the generic server at 
ecftcp://ecf.eclipse.org:3282/server but after that 0.9.3 clients will 
be necessary.

Thanks,

Scott