[wp-hackers] WP Plug-in Manager

[Doug Daulton]

A couple of thoughts ...

1. This is a great idea.  It will greatly expand the usability of WP for 
the non-technical masses.

2.  To the concern that the XML-RPC interface makes this spyware, the 
solution is very simple ... communication.  Making it very clear that if 
the Plugin Manager is enabled, it will sort through the DB to see which 
plugins you have and which could use an update.  Then, make it really 
simple to disable the Plugin Manger.  Then, the functionality exists and 
those that have privacy concerns can turn it off all together.

3. Central tracking of plugin installs and regular usage is a good 
idea.  It gives hard metrics to the devs so they can make decisions 
about tuning the WP core to work well with the most popular plugins 
and/or pulling said plugins into the Core as a default or optional 
feature.  These metrics take the guess work out of the process.

4. There is no need for central storage of the plugins. 
Plugin devs can maintain their distros on their own sites and provide 
the centralized DB a link to the source.  Then, the central plugin 
directory can pullover the code to the central server without the dev 
having to maintain the distro elsewhere.  The only thing required might 
be a common RDF document which is held in the devs downloads dir and 
describes each download and any pertinent data.  When registering a 
plugin with the central plugin DB, devs would provide a link to the RDF 
on their site.  The central plugin DB would parse the RDF and figure out 
what it needed. 

Basically, what is being described is something similar to Windows 
Update or ROM/apt-get/emerge in the Linux/BSD world.  Obviously, 
everyone would have to agree on what that RDF should look like but 
common sense elements would include:

a. Plugin Name
b. Version
c. Author(s)
d. Release Date
e. Download URI
f. Docs URI

I have some other, general thought on development practices, but I'll 
make that a separate post so as not to confuse the issue.

Doug


Stephen O'Connor wrote:

>Just to clarify, here's how I see the idea right now:
>  1) A database of plugins that either contains the plugins themselves or
>links to the plugins (as well as a wealth of other info such as
>instructions, comments, etc).
>  2) A new type of plugin who manages and downloads plugins.
>  3) A feed from the database so the previously mentioned plugin could
>search for and autodiscover new plugins directly from the admin interface.
>
>The problem with the wiki is that some people don't enjoy using them and can
>quickly become horribly organized.
>
>I say it sounds like a great feature.
>
>- Stephen
>