IRC discussion on i18n, xml/utf8, and 1.8->2.0 data migration issues

Conrad Canterford conrad at mail.watersprite.com.au
Fri Feb 3 17:02:24 EST 2006


On Fri, Feb 03, 2006 at 12:27:59PM -0500, Derek Atkins wrote:
> We broke it for Business and SX in 1.8.  It was broken from 1.4->1.6
> for other reasons that I don't recall...  But it's broken ONLY IF
> YOU USE THE NEW FEATURE..  Just running the program doesn't break
> compatibility..  (xml encoding issues asside).

I'm pretty sure the 1.7 versions used to put up a dialog on start saying
in effect "If you use any of the new features (SX, Business) you will
not be able to use this datafile in 1.6. Please copy your datafile and
use a copy in this new version". I think the assumption was (and
probably a valid one) that once you were using 1.8 you weren't going
back to 1.6.

(1.4 -> 1.6 was broken because we changed from the old binary format to
XML - a completely non-backwards-compatible change).

For what its worth, I think the OO solution of a "Save As" with warning
dialog (which in my experience /always/ comes up) is the (longer term)
way to go. Not that I recommend copying Microsoft at all, but this is
the way they do things too, and it is an approach users are familiar
with. I'd also not be fussed if it didn't make it into 2.0, since I'm
very familiar with the gnucash way of doing things.

I do think it should be prominent somewhere (on the release advices at
least) that datafiles saved with new features cannot be loaded into 1.8
AT ALL. I think a start-up dialog probably isn't a bad idea either since
(no offence Wilddev) I suspect many people don't really read the release
notices.

Conrad.



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