preferences and re-inventing the wheel

[Mikey]

William,

RR isn't the only RAD/IDE that does not do or provide these functions.
 RR is a general purpose development environment, and none of the ones
I use include such niceties.  However, there are numerous add-ons that
people have developed.  If one of these does not meet your needs, you
have just discovered a new product market for yourself.

On the item of preferences, there are so many OTHER ways to implement
this that using your proposed solution is actually more complicated,
IMHO, than using many of the other options.  It probably works better
for you than any of mine, so go for it!

Automatic updates are already implemented in numerous RR stacks,
including (if memory serves me right) RevZilla, GLX2, and even RR
itself, so the source code should be trivial to find.  I prefer to NOT
have an updater, and none of the development environments that I use
include a functionality built-in.  Every solution to the problem has
uglies associated with it, which means that you have engineering
decisions to make before implementation.  I have never even considered
giving one to my users in

Version and serial number control is a common problem in every
environment with a multitude of solutions.  Some of those (actually
MANY of those) are commercial.  NONE of the solutions are ideal.  I
can think of at least ten that are completely and radically different
from each other.  Which one is the one RR should implement?  Why
should the rest of us have to put up with THAT one?

Anyway, have no fear.  RR is flexible, so write what you want and sell it.