[wp-hackers] Seeking feedback on Plugins UI

[Jeremy Clarke]

I aggree with OZH that three sections to display the plugins in your
plugin folder is too much. Also, if most people are there to activate
or deactivate, then the hardest thing to get to (a
never-been-activated plugin) is tied for most likely to be used.

I'm not sure about the statistics about how many plugins most users
have installed, but I think that the demos that DD32 and OZH posted
are examples of extreme edge cases where the person not only has tons
of active plugins, but is also hoarding inactive ones for some reason.
If users can delete plugins and install them from inside the admin,
there's really no need to help them sort a giant mess, they should
clean it up instead. It also seems unnecessarily complicated for new
users with very few plugins. We all have tons, but a new user might
install one plugin, go to that page and see what: two confusing empty
sections and their new plugin hiding at the bottom. Until you have
more than 10 plugins it is totally fine to have them all together in
one list with color defining active/inactive status.

I think going back to a single list is a good idea. The checkboxes are
a SUPER useful upgrade to the screen and will make the difference
we're looking for for batch maintenance. If the 'recently deactivated'
information is really useful (i'm pretty skeptical about that but if
everyone else thinks its a good idea) then we should have a column in
the table that shows 'status' including how long ago an inactive
plugin was deactivated, or a special icon or something that defines it
as 'recently deactivated'.

-- 
Jeremy Clarke
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