[ANN] Versions Maven Plugin 1.0-alpha-3 released

[Stephen Connolly <st...@gmail.com>]

The Mojo team is pleased to announce the release of the Versions Maven
Plugin, version 1.0-alpha-3.

The Versions Plugin has the following goals.

    * versions:display-dependency-updates scans a project's dependencies and
produces a report of those dependencies which have newer versions available.
    * versions:display-plugin-updates scans a project's plugins and produces
a report of those plugins which have newer versions available.
    * versions:update-parent updates the parent section of a project so that
it references the newest available version. For example, if you use a
corporate root POM, this goal can be helpful if you need to ensure you are
using the latest version of the corporate root POM.
    * versions:update-properties updates properties defined in a project so
that they correspond to the latest available version of specific
dependencies. This can be useful if a suite of dependencies must all be
locked to one version.
    * versions:update-child-modules updates the parent section of the child
modules of a project so the version matches the version of the current
project. For example, if you have an aggregator pom that is also the parent
for the projects that it aggregates and the children and parent versions get
out of sync, this mojo can help fix the versions of the child modules. (Note
you may need to invoke Maven with the -N option in order to run this goal if
your project is broken so badly that it cannot build because of the version
mis-match).
    * versions:lock-snapshots searches the pom for all -SNAPSHOT versions
and replaces them with the current timestamp version of that -SNAPSHOT, e.g.
-20090327.172306-4
    * versions:unlock-snapshots searches the pom for all timestamp locked
snapshot versions and replaces them with -SNAPSHOT.
    * versions:resolve-ranges finds dependencies using version ranges and
resolves the range to the specific version being used.
    * versions:use-releases searches the pom for all -SNAPSHOT versions
which have been released and replaces them with the corresponding release
version.
    * versions:use-next-releases searches the pom for all non-SNAPSHOT
versions which have been a newer release and replaces them with the next
release version.
    * versions:use-latest-releases searches the pom for all non-SNAPSHOT
versions which have been a newer release and replaces them with the latest
release version.
    * versions:use-next-versions searches the pom for all versions which
have been a newer version and replaces them with the next version.
    * versions:use-latest-versions searches the pom for all versions which
have been a newer version and replaces them with the latest version.
    * versions:commit removes the pom.xml.versionsBackup files. Forms one
half of the built-in "Poor Man's SCM".
    * versions:revert restores the pom.xml files from the
pom.xml.versionsBackup files. Forms one half of the built-in "Poor Man's
SCM".

The artifacts have been deployed to the mojo repository and will be mirrored
to central within the next 24 hours.

The Mojo Team.

Release Notes - Maven 2.x Versions Plugin - Version 1.0-alpha-3
================================================

** Bug
    * [MVERSIONS-3] - display-plugin-updates does not identify the plugin
version as not being provided when derived from the super-pom
    * [MVERSIONS-10] - Property Placedholders output in
versions:display-plugin-updates
    * [MVERSIONS-13] - display-plugin-updates warns that version is not
defined if same versio as in parent pom is defined

** Improvement
    * [MVERSIONS-25] - Users should be made aware that this plugin relies on
accurate maven-metadata.xml files.

** New Feature
    * [MVERSIONS-15] - Add comparisonMethod=mercury
    * [MVERSIONS-18] - Expose updated versions as a report
    * [MVERSIONS-21] - Add mojo to lock snapshots to timestamp version
    * [MVERSIONS-24] - Enable resolution of dependency version ranges
    * [MVERSIONS-28] - use-releases mojo
    * [MVERSIONS-32] - Add versions:commit and versions:revert using a
"Poor-man's SCM" so that changes to the pom can be accepted and rolled back
    * [MVERSIONS-33] - add use-next-releases goal
    * [MVERSIONS-34] - add a use-latest-releases goal
    * [MVERSIONS-35] - add use-next-versions goal
    * [MVERSIONS-36] - add use-latest-versions goal
    * [MVERSIONS-37] - add a use-releases goal that replaces -SNAPSHOT
dependencies with their corresponding release version (if available)

** Task
    * [MVERSIONS-12] - Documentation is incorrect on
http://mojo.codehaus.org/versions-maven-plugin/examples/update-parent.html


** Wish
    * [MVERSIONS-26] - Can't resolve pom properties for specifying plugin
version in pluginmanagement