[mylyn-dev] API problem with AbstractRepositoryTaskEditor.summaryText in

["Mik Kersten" <mik@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

There was an accidental incompatible type change made in the following
protected field of AbstractRepositoryTaskEditor between Mylyn 2.0 and Mylyn
2.1:

  - protected Text summaryText 
  + protected StyledText summaryText

This is a breaking API change, and a connector's task editor subclass will
see a NoSuchMethodError if accessed from a connector's task editor.  It is
very unlikely, though not impossible for connectors to have accessed this
field.  We know of a corner case in connector that accessed it, and in order
to ensure that it could continue to built against Eclipse 3.2 (Mylyn 2.0),
3.3/3.4 (Mylyn 2.1 and later) instituted a work-around that used reflective
access to that field.  For the work-around and more information see:

210695: [api] AbstractRepositoryTaskEditor.styledText has a breaking API
change between 2.0 and 2.1
https://bugs.eclipse.org/bugs/show_bug.cgi?id=210695

If anyone sees this problem please let us know, since our current plan is to
wait until the Mylyn 2.2 (December 19th) release before releasing the fix.
The fix is already in the Weekly builds, but we can provide an updated 2.1
build if it is requested.  Europa Fall Update builds include Mylyn 2.1 and
as such contain this change. Those will not be updated until Mylyn 2.3
(February 27th), so if you do see this problem let us know so that we can
help with the fix.

To prevent future problems of this sort we will be taking additional care
with all API-related changes and patches.  Since automation is the ideal
solution, we also look forward to and plan on adopting the upcoming PDE API
tools that provide static checking for such changes.

Mik

--
Mik Kersten 
Project Lead, http://eclipse.org/mylyn