Hi All.
I’ve been using IDE v1.6.12 ever since I started working with Arduino last year. I’m thinking I will eventually have to upgrade to the latest version. Besides bug fixes, another reason is that Teensyduino’s next release will drop support for the older versions of Arduino.
I’ve heard that some (most?) people maintain multiple versions of the IDE on their machines. I assume this is mostly to guard against legacy code not working with newer version. I’d like to understand the logistics of doing this. Do you just install the new version into a different folder within "C:\Program Files (x86)”? Do all the standard libraries get installed (again) into this new folder? Do all versions of the IDE use the single “.....\Documents\Arduino\libraries” libraries folder for custom-installed libraries?
Use the .zip version, and just extract them to different locations. You can only have one instance of the IDE installed using the installer at a time.
Do not ever use board manager to upgrade the default AVR boards, otherwise all the versions will start using the new version (since the Arduino15 folder is shared)...
All ide versions will share the same sketchbook folder; I think there's a way to make it use a different location on a case-by-case basis.
1.8.2 seems pretty good, at least - unlike the 1.6.x releases, 1.8.x seems to have been pretty solid.
Thanks for the reply. Please elaborate a little more on:
DrAzzy:
Do not ever use board manager to upgrade the default AVR boards, otherwise all the versions will start using the new version (since the Arduino15 folder is shared)...
So, how do you handle it if a needed upgrade is released? If all version share Arduino15, it doesn’t seem possible to do a version-specific upgrade?
I recommend using the version of AVR boards that came with a given version of the IDE. They've broken compatibility between IDE and AVR board versions several times - so there are combinations of AVR board version and IDE version that won't work... And I struggle to think of a use case where it is appropriate to use mismatched versions of the IDE and AVR boards, except if you can't update the IDE (ie, if you don't have admin privs)
If you want to have the option of separate sketchbooks, separate preferences, and also not have Boards Manager installs on one IDE version affect the other you can run one or both IDEs in portable mode:
pert:
If you want to have the option of separate sketchbooks, separate preferences, and also not have Boards Manager installs on one IDE version affect the other you can run one or both IDEs in portable mode: https://www.arduino.cc/en/Guide/PortableIDE
Looks like the way to go. I'll give it a try with v1.8.2 and the next Teensyduino that comes out.
Thanks.