Plugin Directory Structure

This is really down to everyone’s own due diligence which should entail more than looking for a note that says the developer is going to stick around. Such a notice might even be misleading. For example, if a developer stops development and just leaves everything in place… or if a developer is hit by a bus and never returns… People get bored. Life happens. Having that notice in place, in perpetuity, might actually be a disservice in some cases.

I can see your point, and it also applies to any plugin with WordPress of course.

Currently with WP, “due diligence” for me means looking at the “Last Updated” field and seeing how active the developer is in keeping things up to date. I can feel very confident that a plugin that was last updated 1 week ago will work with my up-to-date version of WP.

That would be sort of meaningless if I was using CP. In fact, it means there would now be two ways a plugin could break my site - a CP update might no longer be compatible with the plugin, or a plugin update might no longer be compatible with CP. Especially as plugin developers increasingly revise their code to incorporate Gutenberg.

I don’t know what the answer is… I’m just thinking aloud at the moment. But I do think that confidence in plugins is going to be a very important issue for the average user.

1 Like

In the WP Repo results, plugins tagged ClassicPress could be highlighted as such. Likewise, ones marked Gutenberg or Block could be highlighted as likely not working unless tagged as ClassicPress.

2 Likes

ClassicPress will be using semantic versioning, so there will be no breaking changes introduced within updates to a version. So version 1.9.9 would have no breaking changes as compared to version 1.0.0.

Breaking changes will only be permitted when going from version 1 to version 2, or (assuming we get that far) from version 2 to version 3.

1 Like

Certainly not a bad start. I gave a presentation on Best Practices in Choosing Plugins and Themes last summer (for my WP Meetup, but still applies here) that can give you some additional approaches to due diligence with plugins; I think the plugin-centric stuff starts around slide 15, if you’re interested; the link above is direct to the presentation.

Hi Tim. I just read last night on the road map about your intention to keep version 1 as a long-term support (LTS) version. That’s fantastic and it allays all of my concerns about CP! I’ll be moving all my sites over now.

2 Likes

Thanks. I’ll definitely check that out. I’m much more comfortable about the whole plugin thing now, since I learned about the LTS on v1. I’d still like the CP-friendly plugin developers to be marked somehow though… just to give them my support if nothing else.

As a CP-friendly plugin developer, I can’t disagree with that. :slight_smile:

3 Likes

I would suggest using the standard GitHub user/repo identifier format here, i.e. ClassicPress-research/custom-fields.

To be determined: how to integrate these identifiers into the ClassicPress code.

I think this should be only two categories: if, at any point, the plugin asks for money to unlock features, it’s not Free.

For the first version of the plugin directory, we need to leave out “true” premium plugins (where you have to pay to download the plugins). It will already be enough work to get this up and running in the first place. We can keep paid plugins in mind, but they need to wait for a future version of the directory.

Of course this means that for the initial version, any billing should be left up to the plugin developers.

This is probably something that we can handle in the initial directory. It’s a lot simpler than charging and passing along fees each time someone wants to buy a plugin.

Agree - I see no reason to remove access to the WP repo any time soon, and no reason to mirror it. We will want to consider how we handle plugins that appear in both sources.

1 Like

For sure… just the other day, I created a plugin with the slug local-emoji and the dashboard was reporting that it had an update available…presumably since that’s a spoken-for slug in WordPress’ system. Had I actually updated, it would have wiped out my work.

1 Like

As explained here, I don’t agree. But, if we aren’t going to have paid plugins to start with anyway, the issue isn’t going to crop up immediately.

1 Like

The question is that the plugin shouldn’t ask for money to unlock features, because those features(Premium) shouldn’t exist in the Free version code.

I think two categories (Free and Freemium) is a good place to start.

I think the details of how this works should be left up to the plugin developer at first.

1 Like

I’ll update the post at the top once a consensus is agreed on Free/Freemium and Premium.

At this stage, it’s probably best to include everything which is intended to be there, even if not all makes the cut in v2. This at least means that one eye can be kept on what will be coming to avoid design/development decisions which might cause problems with it down the line.

2 Likes

As I am curious how the community feels, here is a poll to find out:

3 Likes

I’ve left Free/Freemium and Premium in place following the discussions.

Is an Adoption/Takeover tab listing plugins tagged for adoption or old and un-maintained worth including? This would give an obvious place for people to look for plugins which can be adopted or taken over?

1 Like

I wouldn’t include a user-facing tab for this. Somewhere handy, but not in the dashboard.

I’ve been thinking of the visibility element as both dashboard and website, but looking back I’ve not stated that anywhere.

Let’s not worry about UI for adoption just yet - we don’t even have the directory running! Defining the rules is important so people know what they’re signing up to when they list their plugin or theme, but how we actually present choices for adoption etc can safely be left until later.

2 Likes

Just like ads, these should be limited to a certain time frame to allow others to feature their plugins, and they should be marked as “sponsored” to disclose material connection. FCC in US frowns upon advertising disguised as recommendations, unless material connection is clearly disclosed.

1 Like