[wp-hackers] Re: Plugins and supporting old versions of WordPress

Alex Rabe alex.cologne at googlemail.com
Thu May 8 12:45:09 GMT 2008


I have already the same "inner"-discussion.

Based on the Admin UI redesign I planned for myself to drop all pre
2.5 versions
for NextGEN Gallery. It's a horrible work to fit the Admin pages for
two UI and
also the tagging feature (from 2.3) is a very important extension,
which I don't want
to miss anymore.

If people don't upgrade WordPress core, why should they then upgrade
your plugins ?
(Unless somebody has the motto "never touch a running system")

On 8 Mai, 13:29, Viper007Bond <vi... at viper007bond.com> wrote:
> Philosophy question time.
>
> I'm currently re-coding a plugin of mine and the new version will require
> jQuery which was added in WP 2.2.0. Bundling jQuery for people using 2.0.x
> isn't worth my trouble (plus no script loader) and they can just use the
> older versions of my plugin. Less features, but hey, it's their own fault
> for running an old version.
>
> So to the question: what should be the minimum WP version for the new
> version of my plugin? Should I allow the plugin to run on the real min specs
> (2.2) or put in an arbitrary minimum version of 2.3.3 or even better, 2.5?
> Obviously I can choose to support whatever versions I wish -- it is my
> plugin after all that people can chose to use or not to use. However, do you
> think it's my place to be providing incentives for people to upgrade (it's
> in their best interest anyway)? Or is that their business and not mine and I
> should do my best to support old versions?
>
> If I were making use of 2.5-only functions, this wouldn't be an issue -- I'd
> drop support for old versions in a heartbeat, but since my plugin could
> technically work with 2.2+, I'm having a tough time deciding whether to go
> with the carrot and stick approach or not.
>
> Thanks in advance for any opinions. :)
>
> --
> Viper007Bond |http://www.viper007bond.com/|http://www.finalgear.com/
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