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Bug 153618 - Warn the user if they are not using the latest version of the JDK
Summary: Warn the user if they are not using the latest version of the JDK
Status: NEW
Alias: None
Product: installer
Classification: Unclassified
Component: Code (show other bugs)
Version: 6.x
Hardware: All All
: P2 blocker (vote)
Assignee: Libor Fischmeistr
URL:
Keywords:
Depends on:
Blocks:
 
Reported: 2008-11-21 10:08 UTC by Petr Jiricka
Modified: 2014-02-10 14:16 UTC (History)
1 user (show)

See Also:
Issue Type: ENHANCEMENT
Exception Reporter:

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Description Petr Jiricka 2008-11-21 10:08:43 UTC 
The latest version of the JDK (i.e. 6 update 10) works best with NetBeans, while some previous version of the JDK have
some issues here and there. See for example this post:

http://www.theserverside.com/news/thread.tss?thread_id=51949#279320

Basically, people complain that font rendering is a problem and fonts in NetBeans do not look "native", but this only
applies to older versions of the JDK; JDK 6u10 works very well in this area.

There are some other things that work better with the latest JDK, for example jar file locking on Windows was a problem
on older JDKs - the latest JDK works much better.

My enhancement request is: it would be useful to warn users if they are not running the latest version of the JDK that
is available for their platform, and prompt them to upgrade to the latest JDK. This could be done e.g. through the
"bubble" notification UI that we use for informing the user that updates are available. 

It could say something like "You are running NetBeans with an outdated version of the JDK. NetBeans runs the best with
JDK 6 Update 10 or later. Click here for more information."
Comment 1 Antonin Nebuzelsky 2008-12-01 14:19:08 UTC 
Primary place for such warning should be installer. It is the place where people are choosing the JDK to run on and we
can assume they will pay enough attention to such message there. They can also easily go, installer newest JDK and let
the installer search for it. Reassigning to installer.

Notification within the IDE would also be possible but the following issues have to be considered:

1) we would have to explain to the user what steps he needs to take to use the JDK (modify netbeans.conf, which may not
be editable by the user if the IDE was installed in R/O directory by administrator,...)

2) we should not bother the user too much with the warning if the user does not want to follow the advise

Given that I suggest to implement the note also in the installer.
Comment 2 Jiri Rechtacek 2012-10-07 13:05:53 UTC 
Assigned to new owner.