Compatibility across MWorks versions

Support
1

Hey Chris,

I’d like to have your advice on maintaining Mworks usability across versions. My experiments require recent versions (~201903) but others in the lab may be using slightly older (~201803). Are there any potential problems with upgrading (i.e. is mworks reasonably backwards compatible across this time gap)? If this is problematic, is it possible to have 2 different versions of Mworks running on the same machine (maybe with two different users)?
Let me know, and thanks
Rishi

2

Hi Rishi,

My experiments require recent versions (~201903) but others in the lab may be using slightly older (~201803). Are there any potential problems with upgrading (i.e. is mworks reasonably backwards compatible across this time gap)?

There shouldn’t be any compatibility issues, in that an experiment that runs under MWorks 0.8 should still run without modification under a recent nightly build. However, there have been many changes since the previous release.

In general, my advice around upgrading is:

  • If you need a bug fix or new feature that’s only in a nightly build, then upgrade now (because that’s really your only option).
  • Otherwise, upgrade to a new MWorks version (release or nightly) during a transitional period, e.g. between rounds of data collection, or after making significant changes to your protocol.

After upgrading, you should always do some basic testing of your protocols to ensure that they still work as designed. Changing software always brings the risk of breaking it somehow. While I certainly do my best to keep things running smoothly, I can’t test every possible usage scenario. It’s ultimately up to each user to ensure that their particular experiment works correctly (and if it doesn’t, to let me know, so that I can resolve the issue!)

If this is problematic, is it possible to have 2 different versions of Mworks running on the same machine (maybe with two different users)?

No, you can only have one version installed at a time. One way around this is to have multiple disks or partitions on the machine, each with its own, independent installation of macOS and MWorks. Actually, I’d consider this a very good solution, as it gives different users with different software requirements entirely separate environments to work in.

Cheers,
Chris