[Virtuous Ten Studio] Diamondback:
Okay, here are some important information about the next update:

I introduced something completely new and incredibly powerful to VTS: The Script System

It handles three tasks: Import, Build and Push

Each of these have their own "Script", which is basically a

list of commands

to execute. Each "command" is a so called module.

There are many different modules such as "Decompile resources", "Unzip file", "Disassemble dex file", "Generate Java sources" and many many more

VTS comes with a set of predefined script sets - called "Configurations" - to handle most tasks (eg. "Basic code editing", "Basic theming", "Basic HTC theming" and many others.

Each pre-defined configuratins comes with a handy description which tells you exactly what it's used for. Each configuration consists of three scripts, one for each of the tasks.

You can create your own configurations on a global level so you can reuse them with other projects (much like the "Presets" in the current VTS version)

All settings related to your project are now set in the scripts themselves, ie. the framework tag will be set in the "Decompile resources"-module of the "Import"-Script.

You can customize all scripts in any way you can imagine, need to execute a shell command on the device before pushing a file? No problem, add the shell module to your push script and set its parameters

I also added support for plugins, so everyone familar with

.net development

can write their own custom plugin which can interact freely with VTS

There are multiple types of plugins: Document, Project, Solution, Startup, Global, ScriptSystem

A plugin can define one or multiple of these types and will be shown in the UI at various places according to the type(s).

VTS comes with two example plugins, one that loads the last opened solution on startup automatically (type = Startup) and

one that can compile and execute custom C# code on the fly without the need to build and actual plugin dll (that's more of a gimmick for .net developers).

As you might have noticed, there is a plugin type "ScriptSystem", which means that you can also execute plugins from within any script,

giving you sheer endless possibilities of extending VTS and changing the way it works.

If the community comes up with cool plugin ideas I am willing to implement them and potentially also share creations by other devs if they appraoch me with their developments. :)

If there is enough interest I can publish a template for Visual Studio so you can start developing a plugin much faster.

Since a lot of stuff changed,

old projects aren't compatible anymore

. That leaves you with two choices:

Start your projects from scratch and import the binary built with the old VTS version. For this it's required to build all your projects before upgrading to the new VTS version.

This is the recommended upgrade path for your projects since you need to think about what you are doing first :)

The second way is the integrated upgrade. Once you load a solution with old projects, VTS will ask you to upgrade them by manually selecting one of the global configurations for each project.

However, here's the catch:

All your existing project settings will be lost

.

Unfortunately there is no proper way for me to keep these as the script system works totally different than anything from before.

So when using this way, you might want to set up a custom configuration that matches your needs first and then upgrade your old projects.

The update is more or less finished now and only needs some final touches and the OK from my beta testers. If all goes well you can expect it within one week.