Dear plugin developers,
Recently we have started an effort to make the JOSM source code more
modular. [1] This requires a lot of refactoring and many of the original
methods and classes have been deprecated. The work is not finished by
any means, but we would like to make a cut and remove currently
deprecated API at the end of 2017. [2]
Please update any plugins that you are maintaining! The majority of
fixes should be not more than replacing one method by another, as
indicated in the deprecation JavaDoc comment.
Some notable API changes:
* So far, plugins place all their files in one directory, namely
Plugin.getPluginDir(). Now there are separate directories for plugin
user data, preferences, and cache. (The old directory is the same as the
new plugin user data directory.) Among other things, this allows backup
processes to ignore possibly large amounts of non-essential data
(cache). [3]
* The preference interface has been reworked: The field Main.pref is not
technically deprecated yet, but should be replaced by Config.getPref().
The new interface is more restrictive, but sufficient for getting and
setting preference values.
As most plugin developers are aware, the plugin "Mainversion" needs to
be updated whenever older versions of JOSM will become incompatible with
the updated plugin binary (as is usually the case for deprecation
fixes). [4]
[1] https://josm.openstreetmap.de/ticket/15182 (Standalone JOSM validator),
https://josm.openstreetmap.de/ticket/15229 (modular structure for JOSM core)
[2] https://josm.openstreetmap.de/ticket/15310 (The Great Deprecation
Cleanup)
[3] https://josm.openstreetmap.de/ticket/15436 (Store cache data of
plugins in cache location)
[4]
<https://josm.openstreetmap.de/wiki/DevelopersGuide/DevelopingPlugins#Publishingthenewplugin>
Paul
