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

[Andrew Nacin]

On Tue, Aug 31, 2010 at 12:34 AM, Mike Schinkel <mikeschinkel at newclarity.net
> wrote:

> That's very useful functionality and I agree with the approach.  But that's
> not the same use-case I was referring to.  Instead I'm referring to a system
> where a plugin A could identify that it needs plugin B, C and D and that it
> can then automatically download and install B, C and D (with user
> permission, of course.)


Ah, that's another story. The ticket wasn't about installation, it was about
how to tie them together once both installed.

This is something we need to consider soon (probably 3.1) in the context of
child themes. If you want to install a nice-looking child theme, the parent
theme should also be downloaded.

But, if you want to download a plugin that requires BuddyPress, I'm not sure
it follows that you necessarily want BuddyPress downloaded... But there are
some plugins such as taxonomy metadata that are API things, that you *would*
want downloaded.

In either case the directory would keep track of dependencies and alert core
via the API what the requested download is dependent on.