Previously, the information about tester builds was mixed in with the documentation about building the project from
source.
The two subjects are of relevance to two distinct contribution options. Building from source will primarily be done by
developers working on the project code base. Tester builds will be used by beta testers and reviewers.
For this reason, it doesn't make sense to require beta testers to wade through a lot of development documentation not
directly related to their work in order to find the instructions for obtaining tester builds. Likewise, it doesn't make
sense to clutter up the development documentation with such information.
Moving the information about tester builds to a dedicated file makes it easier for the interested parties to find, and
also allows the creation of a comprehensive guide for beta testers without making a negative impact on the development
documentation content.
Previously, information about project development was stored in a file named BUILDING.md in the root of the repository.
That content is hereby moved to the file docs/development.md. This will provide the following benefits:
- Broaden the scope of the file to all information related to development rather than building only
- Store all documentation content under a single folder instead of randomly putting some in the root and others under
docs
An internal release procedure document was created separately from the documentation hosted in this repository. That
internal document became significantly more comprehensive and up to date than the unmaintained documentation in this
repository.
In order to avoid either the burden of maintaining two copies of the same information, or more likely the out of sync
state between the information in the two resulting from lack of such maintenance, a single document will be maintained
here in this repository.
The superior version of the information from the internal document is hereby migrated to the repository where it will be
maintained from here on.
Previously, the procedure for creating a new release of the project was included in the development documentation.
This information is distinct from the rest of the contents of that file in that it is not of any value or interest to
most contributors from the community since only project maintainers will ever create a release. This meant that it make
the document less readable and approachable without adding significant value in return.
The information is still essential to the project maintainers, so it must not be removed, but it can be moved to a
dedicated file under the existing `docs/internal/` folder that is specifically intended for storing such information.
Although the Arduino IDE's primary preferences interface provides all required configuration capabilities, advanced
users may wish to fine tune the behavior of the application or temporarily enable additional log output to use for
troubleshooting problems with the IDE.
The IDE provides such settings in a separate interface.
Previously, the existence and access procedure for these settings was undocumented.
Since this is an advanced capability, the documentation is not appropriate for inclusion with the standard user
documentation on arduino.cc. A file here in the Arduino IDE is used instead. This file will serve as a container for all
such user-targeted documentation.
The original location of the project repository was `bcmi-labs/arduino-editor` and some of the internal development
documentation for the project contains references to the repository.
This documentation was not updated at the time the repository was moved to the current home in `arduino/arduino-ide`.
