[wp-hackers] "Outdated plugin" notice (was: load_plugin_textdomain() )

[Stephen Rider]

On Jul 28, 2008, at 2:25 PM, Otto wrote:

> On Mon, Jul 28, 2008 at 10:42 AM, Xavier Borderie  
> <xavier at borderie.net> wrote:
>> One idea I have (which might be silly or just plain undoable) would  
>> be
>> to build upon the well-received Notification Update message for
>> plugins, and have it blurt out a "Note: This widget uses deprecated
>> methods, and might not work in future WordPress versions." message,
>> which would only appear of there was no new version in sight.
>
> If a user of WordPress upgrades, and then sees a message after  
> upgrading that their plugin may be broken in the future, they are  
> highly likely at that time to go looking for an update. Or, failing  
> that, a replacement for that plugin.
>
> In other words, we need to make the deprecated information *visible to
> the end user*.

I think this is a good idea, BUT...

We have to be careful with what message we give the user if we do  
this.  We can NOT say "this plugin still works for now", because it  
might not.  Deprecated functions are not the only thing that breaks  
old plugins.  At most we can say something like "This plugin uses  
outdated code, and should probably be updated or replaced."

This easily ties in to the issue of telling end users which plugins  
are not checked for updates.  (For which I submitted a patch, which  
has basically received no feedback.)

I think we need a narrow column in the plugins screen that can display  
icons, and the icons either have a mouseover "tiptext" and/or are  
clickabel to pop up a message window.  This could cover both this  
caution message, and the "not checked for updates" message (and  
whatever else comes up down the road.)

(Or maybe put said icons in the "version" cell?  Better than a whole  
new column....)

Stephen