Map Suite Daily Builds Guide
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We make the daily builds of all our GIS products available through the ThinkGeo Customer Portal. This means that you'll be able to try the most cutting-edge GIS features, bug fixes and tweaks that we add to Map Suite without waiting for the next major public release. It's part of our initiative to increase transparency and further include our customers in the development process, where your opinions help shape the future of Map Suite.
Frequently Asked Questions
Here are some frequently asked questions about the new Map Suite daily builds, including where to get them and how to use them.
What are daily builds?
At ThinkGeo, we have an automated build process that runs each day against the production and development branches of source control for each of our mapping products. This process allows us to run thousands of unit tests (plus FxCop) against the latest code to ensure that any recent changes still allow the products to compile and pass all of our internal standards. Once the automated build completes successfully, new packages will be available with the latest compiled binaries for each product.
Why are you making the daily builds available?
We want to be as open and transparent as possible when it comes to our mapping products and our development process. While this daily build process was originally designed to enable us to turn around bug fixes quickly, we have also seen great value in allowing our customers to try out new GIS features and functionality in our development builds. This allows you to be part of the product development life-cycle and help guide which features and functionality are important to you.
Why would I (the customer) want a daily build?
There are a couple of reasons why you may want to try a daily build of Map Suite. The first reason may be due to a bug you have encountered, in our mapping software, and you need a new build to get your project rolling again. Another reason may be that you want to try out a new feature or enhancement that isn't released yet as part of our major release cycle, but which is currently available in a daily build. There are numerous scenarios when upgrading to a daily build might make sense for you.
What is the difference between the production and development daily builds?
The production builds are based on the source code branch from the last major release. These builds will not contain any new features or functionality; they will only include bug fixes we deem as critical, widely used or requested by our customers.
The development builds, meanwhile, are the result of our active development towards the next major release as outlined on our road map. These builds contain many new GIS features and functionality, but they lack the regression testing of a major release build. While development builds are great for testing out new features, you should be aware that their APIs and functionality are subject to change throughout the development cycle.
When are the enhancements in the development daily builds packaged up into a major release?
Our major product release cycle is once per year, typically occurring in May. All new features and functionality built into the development builds before each annual release in May will be wrapped up and included in that annual release.
Where do I get the daily builds?
The daily builds are available now through the ThinkGeo Customer Portal. Once you login, you will be able to download daily builds of any Map Suite free evaluation by clicking the Evaluation Daily Builds link on the left hand panel. To download full daily builds for products that you have purchased, click on the My Downloads link at the top of the left hand panel and you will see the Daily Builds listed underneath the Purchased Products downloads.
How do I use the daily build packages?
The daily build packages usually contain just the updated binaries or DLLs. This allows you to easily switch out the current DLLs that you are using and try the new ones without having to completely uninstall and reinstall your product. We do encourage you to back up your DLLs or binaries before replacing them, in case you need to roll back for any reason.
You can download the daily production build or development build of any Map Suite product, full or evaluation, from the ThinkGeo Customer Portal starting immediately. If you have any questions about a daily build, please post in the support forum for the product you are using.
