Note on migrating: Cannot import first project using drag&drop

[danielholala]

Hi there,

this is just a heads up regarding migrating projects after an upgrade of the IDE.

I got the notification that a new build of MCUXpresso IDE v11.4.0 is out and that I should upgrade to. After the upgrade I wanted to migrate my projects to the new workspace using drag & drop to the project explorer.

However, the manual notes (p.20):  "Drag and Drop functionality to the Project Explorer view is unavailable until the first project is created or imported."

Thus at least for the first project one has to use the "Import project(s) from file system" from the Quickstart Panel.

Note: Import wizard does not automatically install a required SDK. That has to be done manually.

[ErichStyger]

Hi @danielholala ,

Thus at least for the first project one has to use the "Import project(s) from file system" from the Quickstart Panel.

Yes, this indeed is the case and kind of odd. I reported that back a while ago, and this seems to be some kind of Eclipse limitation. So it cannot be used if there are zero projects in the workspace, but afterwards.

I hope this helps,

Erich

[myke_predko]

@danielholala 

Regardless of my feelings about having to create a new workspace for an upgrade of Eclipse (see the previous forum posts), I would never recommend dragging and dropping a project into a new Eclipse workspace.  In the past, I've just found doing that just has too many potential pitfalls, especially if you've customized your build preferences (ie variables, includes or libraries etc.).  

I'm sure you don't want to hear this but when moving projects across workspaces you should create a new project, copy in your source files, customize your build preferences and then build your project.  

It may seem like the tedious approach, but you will save a lot of time going back and trying to figure out what happened even when your build is okay but the app doesn't work as expected (or at all).  

[ErichStyger]

I'm sure you don't want to hear this but when moving projects across workspaces you should create a new project, copy in your source files, customize your build preferences and then build your project.

The point of @danielholala was about importing (linking to) projects, not to copy a project. Drag&drop for importing projects is definitely a good way to import projects (referencing them) into a workspace, I'm doing this all the time.

Erich

[myke_predko]

Hey @ErichStyger 

I guess that's another case where our experience differs - I've always had problems dragging and dropping to import projects into other workspaces has always been problematic for me.  It's not only with MCUXpresso, I've had problems dragging and dropping with Eclipse Java as well as C++ projects targeted as Windows applications.   

I believe that was one of the suggestions the other week for mitigating the need to have a new workspace for an updated version of MCUXpresso - I tried it twice and didn't end up with a working project.  I didn't report it simply because I felt I complained enough already.  

[ErichStyger]

Hi @myke_predko ,

I refer here to drag&drop of *projects*. To my knowledge this is unique to MCUXpresso and CodeWarrior as this is not supported in stock Eclipse. Maybe I'm wrong?

The other thing might be that I'm using Windows. I don't think it should be different on Linux, but that could be the case here. Note that I do *linking* with the import, not a copy. Doing a copy indeed is problematic depending on the project: if it refers to relative locations of the place copied from, it for sure won't work after an import, as it only links to the project and does not make a 'deep-copy'. Just for considerations.

Erich

[danielholala]

@ErichStyger , I'm not really sure I understand which is your preferred way to use an existing project with a new IDE version.

In that thread, you suggest not to share workspaces between different versions of the IDE and instead to import projects from the old workspace into the new workspace. To me this insinuates a strict separation of projects, i.e., the new IDE only accesses the new workspace which contains a copy of the project (copied not linked from the old workspace). Consequently, the projects in the old workspace are only accessed using the old IDE.

Here you seem to suggest to do linking  (not copying) with the import.

However, linking projects seems contradictory to the notion of strict separation. In that thread you reason that issues with backward and forward compatibility can be resolved using different workspaces for different versions. I understand that. Therefore I'm confused why now you suggest linking instead of copying projects.

Just to be clear, this is not a discussion about whether to use drag&drop or the import wizard (from Quickstart Panel) to import a project, it's about selecting "copy projects" or linking projects into the new workspace. Both methods (drag&drop and import wizard) of copying and linking.

Import Wizard Screenshot:

Drag&Drop Import Confirmation Window Screenshot:

[ErichStyger]

Hi @danielholala ,

There are two things: the workspace (which is instantiated as the .metadata folder) and the projects.

I *do* share projects (as long as they are compatible, of course), but I do *not* share the workspace (.metadata) between IDE versions.

So projects (the folder with the .project file) and the worksapce (the folder with the .metadata folder) are two different things. Note that I usually do not store projects inside the workspace *folder*, unless they are only scratch or 'kill-me' projects: I keep projects and workspace separate.

I hope this helps,

Erich

[danielholala]

I also found your blog post about organizing projects in Eclipse.

Thanks.
Daniel