I would like to try out IDE 2.x without sacrificing my IDE 1.8.13 on the same machine. How best to go about doing this?
Install v1.8x as a Portable Installation.
@gfvalvo thanks for your fast reply! Since v1.8.13 is my mainstay IDE is there any way to install v2.x as a portable or second tier alternative?
I use portable for mainstay and other stays. no problems, and benefits.
a7
It works fine on my Mac. One is /Applications/Arduino.app and the other is /Applications/Arduino\ IDE.app and they coexist and can operate on the same sketch and library files in ~/Documents/Arduino/.
Download the ZIP of IDE 2.3.2 (not 2.3.3 due to some annoying bugs); Release 2.3.2 · arduino/arduino-ide · GitHub and unzip to a convenient location.
Both IDE 1.x and 2.x will happily live together and share the installed board packages and libraries. Be aware that 2.3.2 will install the AVR board package version 1.8.6; if you did not update the AVR board package in IDE 1.x this will be the only change that will be made to the 1.x installation.
Once IDE 2.x is started, it will more than likely prompt you to upgrade. To get rid of that prompt, just click "skip version" or something in that line so you don't get that prompt every time.
Advantage of the ZIP approach is that you can simply delete the directory where it is extracted if you want to get rid of IDE 2.x.
@alto777 @DaveX @sterretje ..thank you all for your very helpfull replies!
I simply installed IDE2. I can simply run IDE1 or IDE2, nothing special to do at all. I can even run both at the same time.
@sterretje "...Be aware that 2.3.2 will install the AVR board package version 1.8.6;..."
I modified quite heavily my current AVR board package v1.8.6. Should I make a backup copy of my current 1.8.6 folder and copy it back after the v2.3.2 install to keep my current modified board packages?
Or is there a better way to keep my current version of the 1.8.6 folder?
It's always a good idea to make a backup when making major changes. I probably would make a backup of the full Arduino15 directory. If you like to live on the edge, a backup of the 1.8.6 directory is sufficient.
As far as I know the IDE only checks the json file to see if version of the cores match. If they don't match the IDE will update the core.
I think there is another way by using local (boards.local.txt and platform.local.txt) but I don't know the details and I don't know the changes that you made.