Sorry, I wasn’t sure where to post this since the scripts forum seems to be for actual scripts and not general inquiries about them.
With so many scripts and now many different versions of Blender, is there some easy way to figure out which version(s) of Blender a script was written for and is compatible with?
At the moment I’m just looking at the dates of the script files, if they are accurate, and trying to compare that with the dates of the software releases, that’s about all I can think of. I opened up the .py files with a text editor but there’s nothing I can see in there, and 99% of the time the author doesn’t mention which version it was written for.
I really wish they would make a comment right inside the .py files regarding this and be encouraged to do so. I’m sure I’m not the only one who has several different versions of Blender on my C:\ just for all the different scripts, no?
No. Even if the programmer was nice enough to specify the minimum required version (which is encouraged), there’s no way they could predict at which point in the future the script will stop working. The Blender developers don’t maintain a stable API and little things are changed here and there with most releases, breaking some scripts (partially or completely) in the process.
Any add-on that ships with Blender has a bl_info dictionary with a “blender” value that indicates the version of Blender that the add-on was written for. Most add-ons that aren’t shipped with Blender usually also has this dictionary (especially since it’s in the add-on template). That said, that’s not necessarily a reflection of whether the add-on works with the current release of Blender.
For addons that come with Blender the answer is simple. The addon that comes with Blender is the one that works for that version. Occasionally there may be an error, usually I & others try to fix & check all addons that come with Blender before each release.
For addons that are external from Blender, it’s usually up to the addons Author or sometimes the community to keep the addons up to date with the api & most recent version of Blender.
Occasionally this is not enough & the addon falls into disrepair or is abandoned, in which case yes, I use multi versions of Blender but more to keep record of the addon if it was very useful.
