Netbeans 11.3 and older gradle builds

[Fred Welland <fr...@gmail.com>]

So +1 for NB 11.3.

This is the first NB using native gradle support where I think I can use
this as a daily driver for much of my work  (prior 11.3 the only working
combo for me was NB10 + gradle plugin).

That said,  I work on lots of gradle projects with gradles as old as 3.4.x
to as new as 6.2.2.      There are some constructs in older 3.x builds that
are simply not supported in gradle 6.x.

These projects will not really load at all in NB 11.3 (FWIW: nb10 + plugin
is ok with these).

I exclusively use 'wrapper that comes with project'.

I have played around Options->Java->Gradle->Execution->Gradle Distribution
and use Standard Version and Custom.     Neither of those seem to affect
the loading of the project.    I am guessing, since tooling API 6x is
burned into NB11.3; that is what is used during project load only -- and
thus will choke on earlier build files with some older constructs (no
longer part of gradle 6.x).

Any way to work around this?

-Fred