You certainly have seen from the 0^0 discussion that I have raised the problem of the backward compatibility with 4.0 and extensions. In fact, it affects only the extensions with a custom toolbar. But except the dictionaries, I guess that it makes a good deal of them still.
The problem has been raised by Bernard Marcelly here: http://www.mail-archive.com/api@openoffice.apache.org/msg00107.html But as said by Ariel, this is not an API change (so shouldn't the discussion on the API list be dropped and discussed here instead?): http://www.mail-archive.com/dev@openoffice.apache.org/msg04042.html Rob has opened a wiki page related but without this topic (as for now): http://www.mail-archive.com/dev@openoffice.apache.org/msg03976.html Basically (my understanding, don't hesitate to correct me): - For a [minor] issue in the file structure, all the current extensions with a toolbar MUST be updated - Updated and new extensions won't be compatible with former versions of AOO/OOo For all the details, refer to the link given above. Consequences: - Users upgrading to 4.x will lose such extensions (certainly with no warning since very few users read the release notes) - Both versions of each extension will have to be maintained as long as pre-4.0 versions are still in use So, are all the committers aware of this change and do they all agree about such a major change? I know that there is a topic on the API list (link given above) but I'm not sure it has the same audience as the dev list (number of subscribers I mean). Since this is a major change, I think it deserves a discussion on the dev mailing list. I know that if this change is implemented, the forums will be quickly flooded with users disappointed to have lost their extensions. So this is the topic I will point to in order to explain the dev community rationale about that. I know that code change is sometimes required. But can we take into account the end-user impact here? There may be some transition solution with a deprecated method that would be still valid for some time (let's say until version 5.x for example) with a massive communication to all the accounts having uploaded an extension? Hagar
