[wp-hackers] What Should A Plugin Author Do To Make Plugins Extensible?

[Rich Pedley]

On 01/09/2010 18:29, Mike Schinkel wrote:
> On Sep 1, 2010, at 9:11 AM, Jeremy Clarke wrote:
>> FWIW I think the 'other notes' section is probably adequate for
>> listing API stuff in your plugin that you think should be used by
>> developers. If you have good stuff there you can add a single
>> line to the main plugin description saying 'see other notes
>> section for constants, functions and hooks available in the
>> plugin'.
>
> Yes, clearly the 'other notes' section it's adequate.  Actually,
> having a single "About" section would have been adequate instead of
> having separate Description, Installation, Screenshots, FAQ, etc.
> sections.  But if we only had a single "About" section how many
> plugin developers would it never occur to that they should add
> specifics to address Installation, Screenshots, FAQ, etc?  Looking
> at how many currently don't even add those, I'd say the percentage
> would be pretty high.
>
> Finding a place to put API docs was not the point of the
> suggestion. The point was to encourage plugins developer to add
> hooks by giving them a suggested API section so it will occur to
> them that maybe it's something they should do.
>
> Assuming getting more plugin to offer hooks is a useful goal and
> based on the percentage that offer currently hooks the current
> adequate solution is not, well, adequate.
>
> FWIW.

There are already enough sections in the readme to be honest, adding 
more for a minority (us plugin developers) is over kill.

Encourage a link to a help site or wiki etc. would be better IMO.

Though you can of course already include extra sections:
== Arbitrary section ==

But with the auto install, do we still need an installation section?

Rich