A new version is only useful if people can move to it. In an office with fifty workstations, or five hundred, nobody updates them all on the same afternoon: for weeks, sometimes months, old and new sit side by side. So the new BeeBEEP has learned to speak the language of the old one.
A bridge between two generations
Inside the new BeeBEEP there is a bridge that speaks the BeeBEEP 5 protocol. It has been checked against a real BeeBEEP 5.9.1, and against test data produced by the old code itself, so the two sides really understand each other. Today it already handles:
- finding each other on the network;
- private chats and the chat with everyone, in both directions;
- delivery and read receipts, in both directions;
- name, color and picture, which follow every change;
- groups, now on their way to the same check against the real old versions.
A colleague still on BeeBEEP 5 is marked as such in your list. The newer features that the old version cannot understand, such as voice notes, are simply not offered to them.
Bring your old BeeBEEP with you
At the first start, on a computer where BeeBEEP 5 was installed, the new BeeBEEP finds it and offers to import it: your name, color, picture and profile, your contacts and your groups. The same import is in the settings, to be done later or from another folder. It adds, it never overwrites.
One more update for BeeBEEP 5
The bridge needs no help from the other side: it works with BeeBEEP 5.8.6 as it is, the version most of you have today. BeeBEEP 5 will still get version 5.9.2, planned for October, with the last touches that make living together smoother, full group support included. Then everyone can move at their own pace.