On it's own this is impressive, and as a potential portion of an addons directory it's a promising start.
Per our discussion yesterday (http://drunkenmonkey.org/irc/habari/ 2009-08-16#T02-17-27), there are a few things that could be added to this that would help it on its own, as well as adoption into the larger directory: * Theme support - should be easy, as you pointed out * Input of projects not in repositories (perhaps a zipfile silo/ uploader) - I realize this somewhat defeats the full automation. * Metadata That third one may not be as important for something like this hub, I realize. But back to the plugins directory (heretofore referred to as the 'addons directory'): Development has started and stagnated a number of times over the last several months. The plugin plugins_directory and theme menyu in habari- extras represent all but the tiniest bit of most recent work I'd done, and I don't think too many people have other uncommitted code laying around. Both pre-date the pluggable plugins changeover, and the work you've done on parsing the pluggable xml, including the help, should alleviate most of the trouble the directory had with manual data entry. There is a lot of backend processing to be done with the addons directory, with updates, beacons, and otherwise, but I can't speak as well to what that can or should do as others could. Metadata will be important in the directory as well, for searchability, easier browsing, and better information that may not be captured in the pluggable XML of any one plugin. I'll refer back to the addons directory page in the wiki (http:// wiki.habariproject.org/en/working_groups/addon_directory) which is more up-to-date as far as what the directory needs than any of the code currently committed. -mikelietz On Aug 15, 9:54 pm, Arthus Erea <[email protected]> wrote: > For quite some time, we have talked about having a powerful repository > of plugins hosted on habariproject.org. Indeed, there was even a > working group formed to work on this issue.[1] > > So far, the result of these efforts has been a semi-functional > extensions directory.[2] However, most of the information there is > woefully out of date. This is because the current system is based upon > manual entry, and only members of the Cabal have permissions for such > entry. Additionally, the development of the plugin has stagnated over > the past 5 months.[3] > > Clearly, these issues need to be addressed. It is not a community > repository if only the Cabal can add plugins. Additionally, I believe > we could improve the communication regarding its development. The > community should be fully involved in such an important project. > > If anyone knows, I'd appreciate a response on these questions: > 1) What is the status of the plugin repository? > 2) Where does the code for the plugin repository reside? Who can > update it? Is it all publicly available? > 3) What remains to be done before it is fully functional and ready to > be advertised and promoted? > > Frustrated by these issues, I decided to go about building my own > plugin hub. Aimed at personal sites, I developed a dynamic system > which creates plugin pages automatically. The first implementation is > up in my lab, and has been performing excellently.[4] > > The code for this system is fully available as part of the Mpango > plugin[5], and I welcome others contributions. Ideally, this plugin > and the plugin_directory should be merged at some point. > > I have two goals for this plugin: > 1) It should serve as a central hub for users of a plugin, providing > all the needed documentation, support, and files they need. > 2) It should be fully automated. All management is done through > external systems (Vanilla and svn), so it costs no developer time to > maintain. > > My future plans for this plugin include: > 1) Implementing version compatibility checks. This would be much > easier if we added a <compatible> field to the pluggable schema, as > suggested in #1007.[6] > 2) Adding download links for all available versions, which generate a > zip for users to download. We are already doing this on hp.o, but I'm > not sure of the reliability of that script.[7] > > If anyone has suggestions or would like to help, please chime in. > > --- > [1]http://wiki.habariproject.org/en/working_groups/addon_directory > [2]http://habariproject.org/en/explore/plugins/page/1 > [3]http://trac.habariproject.org/habari-extras/browser/plugins/plugin_di... > [4]http://lab.morgante.net/spamview > [5]http://lab.morgante.net/mpango > [6]http://trac.habariproject.org/habari/ticket/1007 > [7]http://habariproject.org/dist/plugins/ --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ To post to this group, send email to [email protected] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/habari-dev -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
