Show Latest Plugins on Plugin Install Screen in ClassicPress backend

[discobot]

The current Plugin Install screen shows different tabs.

This idea, that was originally mentioned by @Rui on Slack, is to remove all tabs and change the current Popular tab with Latest Additions.

Instead of showing the same plugins with millions of downloads, this feature request is to show a more dynamic tab.

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Read-only archive: Issues · ClassicPress/ClassicPress · GitHub

Author: Wade Striebel

Vote count: 9

Status: open

Tags:

• request-modify-feature

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Comments

The goal is to offer the users the new plugins that are being made and also give some exposure to plugin developers that submit a new plugin.

At the moment there is nothing in WordPress that could show us the latest plugins that were created.

It isn’t just the established plugins with thousands of the downloads that are good it’s up to the users to try the plugins and see if they are useful for them.

~ posted by Rui Guerreiro

I don’t feel comfortable voting or discussing on something for v2 inclusion when a decision hasn’t been made on what it’s going to look like in v1.

~ posted by Dustin Snider

We have the petitions site to vote and discuss V2. What we are removing for V1 has no real impact on what we vote for V2 as things will change.

~ posted by Wade Striebel

Also, I agree with James in regards to some new plugins not being great (putting it nicely). A way around this, that would also be a perk, maybe we can promote new plugins from those who have contributed

~ posted by Wade Striebel

Or have a “ClassicPress Recommended Plugins” section, that could even be a paid placement (very clearly indicated). I guess that would be a separate petition though.

~ posted by James Nylen

Love this idea. The current setup feels like a neverchanging billboard.

~ posted by Code Potent

Just to clear this suggestion is to V2 or later when we have our own plugins directory because we will need some info about the latest plugins that currently I don’t think that exists in the API. And that section is always rotating because of the new plugins, so I guess a new plugin will be there for a couple days I guess.

Also agree in having a sponsored section and others if necessay

I think Themeforest does this pretty well.
https://cl.ly/c2b627605cec/Image%202018-10-09%20at%209.36.19%20PM.png

~ posted by Rui Guerreiro

It’s certainly possible to get the latest plugins one way or another, but I’m not sure it’s a good idea. Copy/pasting from part of What to do with plugin installation section · Issue #117 · ClassicPress/ClassicPress · GitHub

There are over 60,000 plugins in the repository, and growing every day. Most new plugins are early alpha versions, intended for very specific use cases, not fully working, or some combination of the above. I feel strongly that it’s better to curate the list, whether by community usage, reviews, plugin authors recommending their own plugins and competing for spots, or some combination of the above.

~ posted by James Nylen

There are a few plugins that change the Install Plugins page. One I use is useful on both multisite and single site.

The name of the plugin is ‘Cleaner Plugin Installer’.
Cleaner Plugin Installer – WordPress plugin | WordPress.org

It has features I personally don’t use or like, but there are features, including ‘Newest’ and ‘Topics’ that I do find useful.

My argument with the WordPress Repository is that searches aren’t that great, at all. As has been mentioned, WP Repository seems more an advertisement for all things built by developers that belong to a clique. It’s been that way for a very long time.

I will address ‘Recommended Plugins’ in another petition.

Back to topic;

If CP doesn’t include the ‘Latest’ plugins, the plugin above will add it, if we are talking about using the WP Repository. Otherwise, the ideas from the mentioned plugin might be of use.

~ posted by a ClassicPress Supporter

Featured-Popular-Recommended-Favorites - aren’t those all almost completely the same? I’d like to see more options for sorting. Active installs, last updated, compatibility.

~ posted by Glenn Dixon

[anon66243189]

We probably should not focus anymore on what WP repo (or even the CP dir) looks like in the CP admin and instead drive all efforts towards actually making our own repo, plugins, their implementation and maintenance.

Downvote from me therefore, even if I agree with the general sentiment that those tabs/categories of plugins are pretty useless anyway and could be put to better use or just fully removed and let the user use a functional search instead.

[azurecurve]

Is it worth a thread listing features people would like to see available in the directory within the CP admin dashboard?

[anon66243189]

Meh. Probably not, but feel free to start one.

It will likely just be one more “We have amazing ideas and make a lot of noise” thread that will go nowhere and meanwhile we will continue provide a number of plugins that need to be removed in a semi-functional directory that needs urgent improvements before we can remotely think about a integration into CP Dashboard.
Oh wait, it also needs actual plugins :D.

IMO, we should invest no time at all in any such vision, not now, not the next few years, and that is why I suggest to close it even, not just downvote.

If someone has great visions for how the plugin dir thingy should look like in CP Dashboard… I think they should code the directory instead of adding a petition as of how to integrate it in CP, because I think in fact people do not have a lot of preferences in that sense when it comes to how plugins are shown to them, specially if there will be maybe 90 plugins listed of which a number thereof will not work properly or not have any updates ever.

And for WP repo we really should Make no changes at all because it would mean we actually intend to support that repo for a while, which will not be possible the more time goes on (and the more plugins simply become incompatible with CP by version definition)

Know what I mean/intend to say? We probably already spent too much time discussing on it here.
As the initial petition here asks for improvement to the WP repo in the admin… and remove all tabs and change the current Popular tab with Latest Additions., which will literally not happen unless we keep WP repo, I think we can safely forget about this.

[anon98749105]

I don’t actually use the Plugins install page for searching for plugins. It makes more sense to me to go directly to the WP Repo site and search for plugins there that are compatible with CP.

[joyously]

I wonder if the WP API accepts a version number argument, so that all plugins shown would be less than or equal to WP 4.9.
It might be something to consider implementing for the CP API.

[viktor]

With an improved directory in the works, this petition will be closed. There’s a PR that improves default plugins:

Default filters WP Plugins by "classicpress" keyword