major changes to the Spring Tools 4 for Eclipse distribution

• updated to Eclipse 2021-12 release (including support for Java 17) (new and noteworthy)
• builds for Apple Silicon platform (ARM M1) are available now from the regular download page

additional changes

• (Spring Boot) fixed: STS 4.12.0 (for eclipse) *.yml can't automatic prompt (#690)
• (Spring Boot) fixed: A StackOverFlow error for serializable Kotlin data class for autocompletion in the Eclipse IDE (#693)
• (Eclipse) fixed: Typescript comparison: An internal error occurred during: "LSP4E Linked Editing Highlight" (#700)
• (Eclipse) fixed: js syntax highlight disabled by STS4 (#702)
• (Eclipse) fixed: Cannot copy/paste from ANSI console without escape sequences (#667) - fixed in ANSI Color Console project thanks to @mihnita

known issues

• (Eclipse): Updates from STS <= 4.12.1 to the latest Eclipse 2021-1 release will not work due to an incompatibility between the slightly outdated m2e.egit integration that was part of STS <= 4.12.1 distributions and the newest EGit version that is included in Eclipse 2021-12. Therefore the automatic update will only update the Spring Tools components from 4.12.1 to 4.13.0, without also updating the underlying Eclipse release. If you want to updat the underlying Eclipse release as well, please uninstall the m2e.egit integration feature as a first step using the About dialog, then Installation Details, select the Maven SCM Handler for EGit feature and uninstall it. After that, updates to the latest Eclipse platform should work again.

• (Eclipse): There is an issue with the internal web browser opening HTTP URLs on macOS, showing an error popup from the operating system instead of opening the HTTP URL. The best way to workaround this is to switch to an external browser in the preferences via Preferences -> General -> Web Browser and then select Use External Web Browser.

• (Spring Boot): Importing Spring Guides into the IDE using Gradle can result in an exception error dialog showing up, complaining about an incompatible class file version. This is most likely due to the IDE running on the embedded JDK17 by default, but the Gradle version in some Spring Guides is not yet updated to a JDK17-compatible version of Gradle. If you face this issue, please import the Spring Guide using Gradle, as usual, ignore the error dialog, and switch to Gradle 7.3 in the gradle-wrapper.properties file of the imported project. Then trigger a refresh of the Gradle project using the context menu.