'Dead' add-ons

circuit

it seems that many useful extensions for vanilla are no longer supported. often, there are enormous forum threads for these plugins, pages and pages long, suggesting various fixes and patches - and in the end, often you find out that the plugin isn't supported or working any more.

is there any way we could 'sink' add-ons which are outdated or broken, or quarantine them so that they are not shown in the add-ons respository while they are outdated, insecure, incompatible or broken?

Raize

That type of thing would only be useful for mainstream/beginner users who don't have programming knowledge. Even though it may not work right away, most people with programming knowledge can take the existing code and make it work with newer versions of Vanilla, which is a lot more efficient than coding an add on from scratch.

SubJunk

Well I think the trick is to have the ability to label them as certain things (like "broken" or "incompatible with *something*") and I am working on a website that will allow that exact thing. It won't take long to finish, then we will have a much better way of dealing with extensions.

circuit

"That type of thing would only be useful for mainstream/beginner users who don't have programming knowledge."

assuming all users should have programming knowledge is a sure-fire way to discourage widespread adoption of a piece of software.
wading thrugh pages of code must be horribly confusing for people who don't know what they are doing. i know the basics and still find it pretty discouraging when an extension needs heavy modification or is just plain broken.

Darkangel

Look I have to agree with the above comment. This system is brilliant, my boss and others who will be using just love it. The downside is they want it running like a clock ASAP. I want to learn more on how it works, and I'm sure that eventually I'll look into coding, but right now I'm a relative noob and I just want it up and sorted for them. Those with the knowledge to do these things are mighty helpful, e.g. a simple coding that allowed me to use Preview Post with MemberList the other day. If you can get and keep those without technical knowledge, maybe even to the stage of popular extensions being integrated into core, Vanilla will blow other PHP systems out of the water.

Dinoboff

Vanilla 2 should have official plug-ins distributed with vanilla.

circuit

definitely agreed, and i think there needs to be a way for moderators to mark incompatible add-ons, or ones which haven't been updated for a long time, say 6 months.