diy-layout-creator/Project History.md

<h3><a name="Brief_project_history"></a>Brief project history<a href="#Brief_project_history" class="section_anchor"></a>
</h3><ul>
  <li><strong>Version 4</strong> is the latest and greatest version that maintains backwards compatibility with version 3 files. It started from version 3.x codebase that was upgraded to Java 8 in early 2020. It has better support for installation - in addition to the windows installer, universal ZIP package and universal installer, DIYLC now has a native application package for OSX available for download and is also regularly published to Flathub as a Flatpak distribution.</li>
  <li><strong>Version 3</strong> is a relatively modern version that was re-written from scratch starting early 2010, but this time as an open source Java 5 project. It incorporates all the ideas that were accumulated over years and also better code architecture. That should provide better user experience, less bugs and code that's easier to maintain and extend. </li></ul><ul><li><strong>Version 2</strong> was re-written from scratch in Java mid 2007 and is platform independent. The big idea behind this version was flexibility - components were defined through XML files that explain what a component is and how it's rendered on the screen. Unfortunately, it was not very fast and was not backward compatible with version 1 which means that it cannot open files created with version 1. It was my first ever Java project, so code quality was not so great, which is why I gave it up at some point. </li></ul><p></p><p align="center"><a href="http://diy-fever.com/diylc/images/diylc2_screenshot.png" rel="nofollow"><img src="http://diy-fever.com/diylc/images/diylc2_screenshot-320x194.png"></a></p> <p></p><ul><li><strong>Version 1</strong> started its life in May 2005 and was written in Delphi. As such, it only works on Windows machines (or through emulators). There's a large collection of layouts submitted by users for this version which is why it's still kept around. It was created primarily for guitar pedal circuits and has a limited set of components and functionalities. </li></ul><p></p><p align="center"><a href="http://diy-fever.com/diylc/images/diylc_screenshot.png" rel="nofollow"><img src="http://diy-fever.com/diylc/images/diylc_screenshot-320x231.png"></a></p>