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When you clone from this repository, by default you'll getthe master branch, the latest, most recent version of the code base. This branch is under active development and ultimately will become the next major release of IGB. If you plan to develop IGB and would like your changes to be incorporated into the main repository and ultimately packaged for release to users, then you should issue pull requests to the master branch only.

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When we package IGB for release on the BioViz.org Web site, we create a new tag. If you need to view the source code for older versions of IGB corresponding to specific versions released to users, check out the corresponding tag.  If you are developing an IGB App and want to write an App that is compatible with the currently released version of IGB, then check out the corresponding tag.

IGB versioning - major and minor releases

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In IGB, N is the major release number, M is the minor release number, and P is the micro or "bug fix" release number. (Bug fix releases are also called patches.)

All new versions minor release of IGB support all API methods available in earlier releases sharing the same major release number. New releases that increment the minor or micro numbers may contain changes to the API which are backwards compatible with all prior versions from the same major release. In other words, a . They also may contain new interfaces not present in the earlier versions. A new minor or bug fix release should always be compatible with IBG Apps build built against earlier versions from the same major release.

If we increment the major release number, that means many aspects of the API are likely to have changedNew major releases of IGB contain so-called "contract breaking" changes to the IGB API. This means that any a new release that increments the major number (e.g., releasing IGB N.0.0) may include incompatible changes to the API methods that affect IGB Apps built using the previous major release. To ensure that your users can run your App when a new major version is released, you should re-build your App using the latest IGB platform and release it in the usual way. We recommend you release versions of your App that are compatible with all major releases above IGB 8.0.0 to ensure that the greatest number of users can run your App.

However, if you are unable to release an update to your App, users will always be able to run it using older versions of IGB, which they can get from our files download page at Sourceforge.

If you are unable to do this, users will still be able to run your App, but they'll need to install the previous version of IGB. This is not difficult to do as older IGB installers are available from Sourceforge. 

Before making a major release, the IGB core development team contacts everyone we know of who is developing IGB Apps to alert them to upcoming changes in the upcoming changeAPI.

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