Plugins repository - suggestions for improvements
I have suggestions towards the plugins repository, it needs to get some improvements.
This post deals with sorting of the plugin repository, with suggestions on how to improve. It also deals with plugins that have gone Github-only, but still listed here.
Take a look at this plugin as an example: http://vanillaforums.org/addon/shwaipbot-plugin
The website says "UPDATED 6 JUNE", and then when the user clicks the plugin, the latest version was 1.0.1 DECEMBER 2013 .
As a user it is currently not obvious and intuitive to figure out:
- What are the newest plugins in the repository, most recently added to the plugin repository
- What are the latest updated plugins
It should be possible to see
- NEWEST PLUGINS
- RECENTLY UPDATED PLUGINS [VERSION]
- RECENTLY UPDATED PLUGINS [INFORMATION TEXT]
The reason for the distinction between Recently Updated plugins VERSION and TEXT is that it seems the website is showing "Updated 6 JUNE" but that's only the information text on the plugin, and it has nothing to do with the version.
On plugins with
Also there should be GITHUB links to the plugin repo, and a github to its latest version tag which points to the plugins' zipfile archive.
It is now very common for some plugin authors to say "please use github for all correspondence, I will not follow this website any longer". This is fair enough and and I think the website needs to improve to take this new development into account.
It could even have a "latest/last commit" infobox, pulled from github, so that the viewer will know if the development of the plugin has stalled or not.
Comments
Also:
I remember when Vanillaforums 2.1 was released, there was a community/crowdsourced effort to test every plugin against the current version.
I think each plugin should have a "VERIFIED WORKING FOR VERSION X" like this:
"10 PEOPLE HAS TESTED AND VERIFIED THIS PLUGIN FOR VERSION 2.1.1"
"5 PEOPLE HAS TESTED AND VERIFIED THIS PLUGIN FOR VERSION 2.2"
Also there should be an absolute rule that each plugin must come with a screenshot of every user facing functionality and every admin facing functionality. It's really strange to me, why people would spend so much time and energy making a plugin, and not upload a screenshot of its functionality.
Some of these suggestions are not asking a lot, others, take more effort to implement.
Suggestions are great, but code submissions implementing your suggestions are better. Check out the community repo issue list for the current suggestions here: https://github.com/vanilla/community/issues
I made a working PR for this, but it requires more polish and love: https://github.com/vanilla/community/issues/6
Search first
Check out the Documentation! We are always looking for new content and pull requests.
Click on insightful, awesome, and funny reactions to thank community volunteers for their valuable posts.
"Suggestions are great, but code submissions implementing your suggestions are better."
I agree, but one has to start somewhere!
Bump! Any other comments from people about this?