Remove or disable Workspace version check dialog about eclipse.platform.ui

[merks]

I thought the value was to make the user aware that such a workspace may no longer work with an older IDE and that if they want it to continue working with an older IDE they shouldn't use it with the newer IDE. What's the exact text of the message?

[trancexpress]

No thanks, I prefer to be told explicitly that I might be breaking a workspace by using it. Same for users of the product I work on.

-1 from me

[dstango]

Would it be reasonable to have a (semantic) version number of the workspace configuration files instead of the eclipse version that would allow to actually tell if breaking changes are to be expected?

[vogella]

@dstango that would be nice, with this we would have a reasonal warning and not not a random dialog. AFAIK we have not changed workspace configuration structure in > 10 years.

I currently do know how to get the information about the workspace version. Anyone knows that?

[vogella]

I thought the value was to make the user aware that such a workspace may no longer work with an older IDE and that if they want it to continue working with an older IDE they shouldn't use it with the newer IDE. What's the exact text of the message?

[laeubi]

@vogella it is not really only the workspace format but in most cases a newer eclipse also has newer plugins and they might write data there that older versions can not read anymore and thus you might be break your path to go "backward"... anyways for those not like the message, as your screenshot shows, there is a "do not warn again"....

[merks]

Note that any plugin that stores metadata in the workspace could store it in a form not recognized by an older version of that plugin, so I don't think there is a semantic version that can be maintained by the platform itself...

[vogella]

Ok, lets close this issue.

[trancexpress]

A quick search on my personal bugs for workbench.xmi shows:

https://bugs.eclipse.org/bugs/show_bug.cgi?id=574805
https://bugs.eclipse.org/bugs/show_bug.cgi?id=527934
https://bugs.eclipse.org/bugs/show_bug.cgi?id=574819

There are definitely changes being done, that break (to some degree) even re-using the same workspace with a newer Eclipse.

You can argue "well the user will still use the new workspace anyway, lets hide the dialog because most of the time its not an accurate warning". But the dialog must stay if you try to open a newer workspace with an older Eclipse. Who knows what is broken in which ways in that scenario.

The value of the dialog is that you can abort the start-up if you e.g. made a mistake and don't want / can't risk to ruin your workspace. Once Eclipse is up its too late.