1/ rating system: along the line of what Matt said: 5. There should definitely be a ratings system or some way for the best plugins to quickly rise to the top. From a user perspective, there's nothing worse than a long list of optional modules like exists now. If a user is looking for a plugin, they might lack the experience or knowledge to create the functionality on their own. So how are they supposed to pick the best and most appropriate plugin to accomplish a task? Those "in the know" need to help them do it by making the best ones most visible. I would really like to have, on the other side of the "rating" rope, the "sandbox", gathering plugins in the process and experimental plugins, that are at alpha stage. 2/ support forums: I would also like that the repository provides a support forum dedicated for each plugin. In this manner, we keep jquerians together instead of diasporating ourselves :) , no really, just because you can create a huge central knowledge base to anything related to jquery. 3/ metadata: I'm sure you've thought of this, but just in case: indication of browser support for each plugin, and supported jquery version. 4/ Maintenance process: Finally, a last thought: when i think about the wordpress plugin repository, from a nice slick ajaxified central place, it quickly became a plugin cemetary, with most info being outdated, plugins not being usable anymore. So i wonder: should each publisher maintain its own plugins information on the repository, or better have an administrator team behind taking in charge the website content maintenance? I guess i would favor a way in between, with plugins authors having control on their plugins, but with administrators people behind that can curate what is being published (maybe a link "report outdated content to the administrators" on each plugin page, so that administrators have users as error / dead content detectors :) ). Since we all have a life to earn, do you plan to "recruit" among good willing jquerians potential moderators to become this administration team ? Thank you for your time, Alexandre Plennevaux _____
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Yehuda Katz Sent: mardi 27 février 2007 5:02 To: jQuery Discussion. Subject: Re: [jQuery] jqueryplugins.com Hey Matt(s). I'm heading up the effort within the jQuery team to standardize the way we handle plugins. We've already begun adding meta-data to plugins to make it easier to automate searches and indexing of plugins in the subversion repository. We're also in the process of putting together an official plugin repository that would be hosted on the jQuery website with many of the same features that you're suggesting. I'm really excited to see activity on this front outside of the jQuery core team, and am looking forward to both the official repository and HYPERLINK "http://jqueryplugins.com"jqueryplugins.com each having a unique place in the evolving world of jQuery. More comments interspersed below. On 2/26/07, Matt Kruse <HYPERLINK "mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]"[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > I don't want to diminish your excitement but we're already in the > process of building a plugin repository to better manage the jQuery plugins. Speaking of which, is there any list of things you are building into the first release? A list of future enhancements? As I've been reading, experimenting, and developing, I had a few thoughts. If 20k is the jQuery limit, that means new development on the core library will probably be really limited, and the future of jQuery really lies in the plugins. Is this the vision? There will definitely be more development on the jQuery (1.2 will probably have animation improvements, for instance), but many of the things people really want to see (like better widgets) fall into the plugin space, not the core space. If so, then the plugins area certainly warrants a lot of attention. It is probably where many new jQuery users will be hooked because they can easily do X or Y, not because they can do the lower-level JS stuff easier with the core lib. Absolutely. With these thoughts in mind, I had few suggestions - some (or all!) of which I'm sure you're already considering: 1. The "official" list of plugins should get its own page and be clearly separated from other non-official plugins. They should meet some tough standards, be updated and supported, and avoid overlapping functionality as much as possible. It should be clear what is required for a plugin to be considered "official". I believe this is in the plans. As we move forward, official plugins will become more like the "modules" of other libraries, adding functionality to the core that are not provided by default. But because they'll each be maintained by individuals with "an itch to scratch," I believe we'll have a leg up over all-encompassing libraries. 2. Official plugins should have a common naming convention, always have the same license as jQuery itself, and follow some similar coding guidelines. We're already moving in that direction. Documentation is currently required for official plugins, and in most cases, dual-licensing (GPL and MIT) is required as well. 3. Documentation should be consistent. There should be a single format which all plugins should follow - perhaps an enhanced version of jsdoc? This way the API for every plugin could be published using the same structure and format, and multiple libraries could be combined and documented together. All official plugins use jQuery's own documentation format, and Visual jQuery pulls that documentation out of the plugin files for automated APIing :). 4. In line with #3, some meta-data should be consistent across all plugins so a dynamic list of plugins could be built. Name, description, author, last updated, etc. Yep. If you like at the svn, we're starting to add META.json to all plugins, so that the plugins each have consistent meta info. 5. There should definitely be a ratings system or some way for the best plugins to quickly rise to the top. From a user perspective, there's nothing worse than a long list of optional modules like exists now. If a user is looking for a plugin, they might lack the experience or knowledge to create the functionality on their own. So how are they supposed to pick the best and most appropriate plugin to accomplish a task? Those "in the know" need to help them do it by making the best ones most visible. Absolutely. This is definitely in the works for the first release of the official jQuery plugin repository. Just some thoughts. I would really like information or discussion on the documentation/API side of things, as I am currently looking for the best way to document a jQuery API. This definitely needs to be better documented. There is already a very solid, consistent doc format for jQuery code. Matt Kruse -- Yehdua _______________________________________________ jQuery mailing list HYPERLINK "mailto:[email protected]"[email protected] HYPERLINK "http://jquery.com/discuss/"http://jquery.com/discuss/ -- Yehuda Katz Web Developer | Wycats Designs (ph) 718.877.1325 -- Ce message Envoi est certifié sans virus connu. Analyse effectuée par AVG. Version: 7.5.447 / Base de données virus: 268.18.4/703 - Date: 26/02/2007 14:56
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