[wp-hackers] Seeking feedback on Plugins UI

[DD32]

On Thu, 05 Jun 2008 21:24:50 +1000, Ozh <ozh at planetozh.com> wrote:

> My thoughts:
>
> I don't see much improvement in the Plugins page. The bulk selection  
> stuff
> is cool, but I'm definitely not fan of the "let's split the plugin list  
> in
> 3 parts" move: yet another area in the admin where I will be scrolling
> back and forth like crazy to find what I'm looking for (especially  
> between
> the "not active" and the "recently active" lists)
> What I find more efficient and would like best would be a single list  
> with
> filtering capabilities:
> <http://planetozh.com/download/plugins/better-plugin-page-demo/>

I guess it comes down to the user really.
A few people who i've talked to about it rarely goto the plugin interface,  
When they do, they're generally after deactivating an active plugin, or  
activating a plugin.
Or its to upgrade a plugin, In general, They're only interested in the  
Active plugins.

> Note about the wording: "available plugins" might be confusing here. A
> plugin can be available "on my blog" or available "for download from
> wp.org", so I recommend the good old "inactive". "Available" makes more
> sense on the page where you browse and pick a plugin to install.

My thinking was "Here are the plugins you have installed which are  
Available for use"
However, I do see what you mean.
It didnt make much sense to me at the time for "Here are the plugins which  
you have installed, but are not activated" "Deactivated Plugins" just  
didnt fit in as a title to me.

I'm open to All ideas, I wasnt expecting it to be commited so soon to be  
honest, i was expecting to end up making some changes to the patch  
beforehand based off some feedback :)

> The other pages under the "Install Plugins" page are definitely cool and
> bring true features.
>
> I'm not sure we need a "recently updated" list: either we get  
> notification
> updates for plugin we have installed, or we find a cool plugin by  
> browsing
> through popular or by searching, right? "Newest" can be a cool page to  
> get
> some inspiration ("hey, nice plugin idea, I'm going to try this") but I
> can't imagine why I would ever look at the "recently updated" list.

I just grabbed the current views the wordpress.org site referenced to.
That list is filterable, So a plugin could come along and add a tab;
Eg: Cool-site.com hosts some wordpress blogs, it installs a plugin and  
adds another tab "Premium Plugins", They'd be plugins that the user has  
access to from that host..

> More infos in the "Install Plugins" pages would be cool: average rating,
> sure, but how about the number of ratings, the number of downloads, and
> infos about version compatibility (a lot of plugins are mentioning  
> they're
> compatible up to 2.3)

Yep, Compatibility needs to be mentioned, Still unsure how to show that
Total downloads... Thats not really a statistic which needs to be  
expressed in the downloads list IMO, I'm not interested in a plugin being  
downloaded 1000 times ot 5 times, What i want is something that is rated  
well, and completes the needed task.
I am open to ideas though :)

> I think there's an inconsistency between the main plugin page and the
> Install Plugins / Popular Plugin page: plugins URL are either the real
> plugin page or the page on wp.org/extend, plugin authors are either  
> linked
> to their own websites or to their wp.org profile. I think I like first
> option best (real page, website).

Ah.. The main reason its linking weirdly there is because that mockup was  
pulling data from the RSS feed, as such, most of the data had to be bodged  
:)
The plugin name should link to the plugins homepage, The author link  
should link to the authors homepage, same as the plugins page.
Might need to add a link to the wordpress.org page in there now you  
mention it.

> Wording: "term" is unclear to me on the search page. Does it mean "search
> from title / description" ? I wouldn"t have thought about searching by
> authors but this is very cool.

I took the inspiration from the Last.Fm player, It allows searching by  
Artist or Tag, It seemed like a good idea.
I wasnt sure of what to call the "Term" one, But it'd basically search the  
title and description.. You've searching for a term in the plugins  
directory, or a tag, or a plugins author.
The search page needs some work though.

> A cool feature to consider would be a way to rate a plugin right from my
> own Plugin Management page. That would increase connectivity between blog
> users and wp.org/extend and make those ratings more relevant with more
> votes.

That is a good point, I'll have a think about it. It does increase the  
conection between the 2 significantly..
There's possibly going to be a few changes to change that in the future  
too, So i think i might leave that thought until later, and just get the  
core installation working first before looking at the integration issues.


> All in all, very impressive work again DD. Definitely something I'm
> looking forward to using in next WP.

Thanks, And thanks again for the feedback, Thats definately what i want to  
hear, Thoughts which differ from mine :)