App store compare (preview)
In the Mendix best practices is stated that when introducing a new Mendix App Store component to a project, carefully consider the support level of the component. Using components that are community supported introduces a maintainability and upgrade risk.
App Store modules should NOT be modified. If an App Store module is modified, updating to a new version becomes much harder, because the changes will be overwritten when a new version is downloaded from the App Store. If changing an App Store module is unavoidable, you have two options:
- Mark any changes you make explicitly and clearly, and perform them again when the module is updated
- Copy the contents of the App Store module to another module in your app and use that module instead (remember that your app will no longer reflect updates to the original App Store module)
To minimize the number of changes in the actual App Store module, it is advisable to combine them in a separate extension module wherever possible.
So we added features and rules to detect changes to App store modules and widgets, and ACR helps you managing this.
Now in addition our support department asked us to check if App store widgets and modules are on the latest release. This to incorporate bug fixes and security patches and prevent unnecessary support tickets. We built this rule too!
One thing to add is that you cannot add a widget or module that is for a newer release of the Mendix platform.
And we already have a rule that checks if you are on the latest version of the Mendix platform for the release your in. This rule also takes into account LTS versions, so currently 6.10.<latest>, 7.23.<latest>, 8.6.<latest> and 8.<latest>.<latest>. You can pick any of these depending on your needs and phase in the platform lifecycle.