Updating datafield, and dropping support for older devices

Hi - I have a datafield that's a couple years old, and was written such that devices like the Fenix 3 with only a 16KB limit for datafields could use it. This has limited the amount of functionality that I could put into the datafield, of course.

Now I'm getting ready to push a new version that will require 32KB memory for the datafield. I'll mark it such that it is only compatible with devices that have 32KB.

My question is this -- for older devices, will they still be able to find/download the older version? I suspect they won't.

So I'll probably end up creating an entirely new entry in the CIQ store for the new version, so that legacy devices can still find/use the old one.

It seems silly to create what amounts to a duplicate of my datafield (albeit with more features).

Now, on the old version (limited to 16KB devices), I'm wondering if I should remove support for the devices that have more memory - and steer people to the 32KB version. Any advice there?

Thanks!!

jim_m_58 over 8 years ago

You may want to take a look at Jungles in the programmer's guide. With that, you can do things such as a source16k.mc and source32k.mc based on the target device, and with a single upload to the store, support the older devices as well as newer devices. That way you don't lose any users or stats, and for devices with more available memory they get the new and improved version with just a simple update.

marksibert over 8 years ago

Thanks! I'll check it out!

marksibert over 8 years ago

You may want to take a look at Jungles in the programmer's guide. With that, you can do things such as a source16k.mc and source32k.mc based on the target device, and with a single upload to the store, support the older devices as well as newer devices. That way you don't lose any users or stats, and for devices with more available memory they get the new and improved version with just a simple update.

Just wanted to say THANKS! Jungles were exactly what I needed. I hadn't been following some of the SDK changes, and had missed that one. I'm now using a combination of inheritance and jungles to build a 16k and 32k version of the datafield. The following article helped a lot too:

https://developer.garmin.com/index.php/blog/post/pro-tip-tackling-connect-iq-versions-screen-shapes-and-memory-limitations

Now I can start working on some of the user-requested features that wouldn't fit into the 16k version. :-)