Update GH plugin running in Rhino V5. Which option is best? Update to Rhino 6 or Rhino 7?

Serengeti (Rhino WIP) Grasshopper2
1

Good evening all,
I hope all are good and and safe at home.

Quick question.
I developed a Grasshopper plugin to run in Rhino 5, and I keep using the same plugin for Rhino 6. Now I need to do maintenance and include new features. would be a good Idea to update to a new version. What do you recommend me? Update to Rhino 6 or 7

Thanks in advance
Carlos.

2

At this time you would update to Rhino 6. Your R6 license entitles you to download and use the Rhino 7 WIP at no additional cost so you can evaluate the changes (McNeel would call them “improvements” but the WIP is to find out if their customers would too). Once Rhino 7 is released the last R7 WIP will expire and there won’t be any new ones. If you like R7 you can then upgrade to it (historically at reduced pricing) and start trying out Rhino 8 WIP - assuming Rhino 7 release isn’t so perfect and full featured that there is no need for an R8. Or that the developers aren’t all retired by then.

3

I re-read your post and realize you may have been asking for advice on whether you should update your plugin to work with Rhino 6 or 7. If that’s the case I’ll have to defer to experts.

4

I still would go for v6 first. Even though Rhino 7 will be out at some point it will be quite some time until many have moved to using Rhino 7. And the initial post by @AlW still holds: you can update your own v5 to v6, and access Rhino WIP (v7), thus start work on updating your plug-in.

Between v6 and v7 there should be no breakage, but there may be additions to v7 that are not in v6, so in that sense it is better to upgrade for v6 first, since that should work in v7 without changes.

5

Hi Carlos - since you posted this in the “Grasshopper2” category - there is no Grasshopper 2 yet.
In Rhino 5, you run Grasshopper 0.9. Rhino 6 ships with Grasshopper 1 included. The differences between those two versions of Grasshopper are minor but significant enough to make backward compatibility an issue. Rhino 7 will ship with a version of Grasshopper 1 that will be mostly identical to the version that runs on Rhino 6 but will have added components for, e.g., SubD objects and running GH files “in context” without the GH interface.
-wim

6

Thanks Wim,
I was wondering if GH2 was already out with a Microsoft template for VS. I guess I will update to next version (V1). I will have a look the GH files “context mode” maybe I can take advantage of that too.

thanks again @wim @AlW @nathanletwory.
Stay safe.

The very best
Carlos.