Re: [Qgis-developer] [Qgis-user] Better tags for plugins
Hi Paulo, Surely this can be enforced by having requirements for acceptance on the official plugin repository. If a plugin doesn't fulfil all the requirements, it doesn't get included. Possible requirements (to give an idea): - Brief description of plugin, - Detailed explanation of plugin. - How to use documentation. - Useful, consistent tags. - Homepage/tracker/repository links (that work and go somewhere relevant). - Author - Changelog - Date of last plugin release - Supported QGIS Versions This may (will) mean fewer plugins, however the plugins that don't get included would be ones with poor user documentation. Most plugins fail quite badly at making it clear what they do, let alone how to use them. That lot wouldn't take much more than half an hour to do for any given plugin (with only a few very-complex exceptions) and would make plugins much more useable. Cheers, Jonathan -Original Message- From: qgis-developer-boun...@lists.osgeo.org [mailto:qgis-developer-boun...@lists.osgeo.org] On Behalf Of Paolo Cavallini Sent: Friday, February 20, 2015 1:12 PM To: Lynton Cox Cc: qgis-user; qgis-developer Subject: Re: [Qgis-developer] [Qgis-user] Better tags for plugins Hi Lynton, Il 19/02/2015 19:21, Lynton Cox ha scritto: Please don't forget the newbies need to know exactly what plugins might be used for - some have hardly any description. Once out of the basic QGIS manual finding one's way around isnt that easy. Many amateurs in areas such as local studies realise how useful GIS but see that jargon and acronyms can fog the path. Yes, the About is often neglected. I invite plugin authors to add a reasonable description, but I cannot enforce this. A very good idea would be for the user to write a short note and add it to a feature request, through the plugin bugtracker; even better, this could be added as a Pull Request on the plugin repository. All the best, and thanks. -- Paolo Cavallini - www.faunalia.eu QGIS PostGIS courses: http://www.faunalia.eu/training.html *New course* QGIS for naturalists: http://www.faunalia.eu/en/nat_course.html ___ Qgis-developer mailing list Qgis-developer@lists.osgeo.org http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/qgis-developer This message has been scanned for viruses by MailControl - www.mailcontrol.com Click https://www.mailcontrol.com/sr/SVGcvJSn6gnGX2PQPOmvUizKrmxxhcEGGlzw3ci4oH!oYUmIc3YrHGSGHzny8KZlOXtgio1tB25zr!jqbv!p6A== to report this email as spam. HR Wallingford and its subsidiaries uses faxes and emails for confidential and legally privileged business communications. They do not of themselves create legal commitments. Disclosure to parties other than addressees requires our specific consent. We are not liable for unauthorised disclosures nor reliance upon them. If you have received this message in error please advise us immediately and destroy all copies of it. HR Wallingford Limited Howbery Park, Wallingford, Oxfordshire, OX10 8BA, United Kingdom Registered in England No. 02562099 ___ Qgis-developer mailing list Qgis-developer@lists.osgeo.org http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/qgis-developer
Re: [Qgis-developer] [Qgis-user] Better tags for plugins
In my experience Paulo has been doing good job of encouraging developers to do just that. If we want to formalize it further it might be a good idea to set the requirements lower for experimental plugins as it happens to be a helpful means of facilitating testing plugins on different platforms. TSW On Feb 23, 2015 4:26 AM, Jonathan Moules j.mou...@hrwallingford.com wrote: Hi Paulo, Surely this can be enforced by having requirements for acceptance on the official plugin repository. If a plugin doesn't fulfil all the requirements, it doesn't get included. Possible requirements (to give an idea): - Brief description of plugin, - Detailed explanation of plugin. - How to use documentation. - Useful, consistent tags. - Homepage/tracker/repository links (that work and go somewhere relevant). - Author - Changelog - Date of last plugin release - Supported QGIS Versions This may (will) mean fewer plugins, however the plugins that don't get included would be ones with poor user documentation. Most plugins fail quite badly at making it clear what they do, let alone how to use them. That lot wouldn't take much more than half an hour to do for any given plugin (with only a few very-complex exceptions) and would make plugins much more useable. Cheers, Jonathan -Original Message- From: qgis-developer-boun...@lists.osgeo.org [mailto: qgis-developer-boun...@lists.osgeo.org] On Behalf Of Paolo Cavallini Sent: Friday, February 20, 2015 1:12 PM To: Lynton Cox Cc: qgis-user; qgis-developer Subject: Re: [Qgis-developer] [Qgis-user] Better tags for plugins Hi Lynton, Il 19/02/2015 19:21, Lynton Cox ha scritto: Please don't forget the newbies need to know exactly what plugins might be used for - some have hardly any description. Once out of the basic QGIS manual finding one's way around isnt that easy. Many amateurs in areas such as local studies realise how useful GIS but see that jargon and acronyms can fog the path. Yes, the About is often neglected. I invite plugin authors to add a reasonable description, but I cannot enforce this. A very good idea would be for the user to write a short note and add it to a feature request, through the plugin bugtracker; even better, this could be added as a Pull Request on the plugin repository. All the best, and thanks. -- Paolo Cavallini - www.faunalia.eu QGIS PostGIS courses: http://www.faunalia.eu/training.html *New course* QGIS for naturalists: http://www.faunalia.eu/en/nat_course.html ___ Qgis-developer mailing list Qgis-developer@lists.osgeo.org http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/qgis-developer This message has been scanned for viruses by MailControl - www.mailcontrol.com Click https://www.mailcontrol.com/sr/SVGcvJSn6gnGX2PQPOmvUizKrmxxhcEGGlzw3ci4oH!oYUmIc3YrHGSGHzny8KZlOXtgio1tB25zr!jqbv!p6A== to report this email as spam. HR Wallingford and its subsidiaries uses faxes and emails for confidential and legally privileged business communications. They do not of themselves create legal commitments. Disclosure to parties other than addressees requires our specific consent. We are not liable for unauthorised disclosures nor reliance upon them. If you have received this message in error please advise us immediately and destroy all copies of it. HR Wallingford Limited Howbery Park, Wallingford, Oxfordshire, OX10 8BA, United Kingdom Registered in England No. 02562099 ___ Qgis-developer mailing list Qgis-developer@lists.osgeo.org http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/qgis-developer ___ Qgis-developer mailing list Qgis-developer@lists.osgeo.org http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/qgis-developer
Re: [Qgis-developer] [Qgis-user] Better tags for plugins
I was referring to manual vetting. TSW On Feb 23, 2015 7:49 AM, Alessandro Pasotti apaso...@gmail.com wrote: 2015-02-23 15:41 GMT+01:00 Trevor Wiens tsw@gmail.com: In my experience Paulo has been doing good job of encouraging developers to do just that. If we want to formalize it further it might be a good idea to set the requirements lower for experimental plugins as it happens to be a helpful means of facilitating testing plugins on different platforms. Hi, speaking as the Plugin's repository developer, I would say that implementing different validation rules for experimental/stable plugins would require some not trivial refactoring. But if is there anybody out there willing to help, why not? The code is here: https://github.com/qgis/QGIS-Django/tree/master/qgis-app/plugins and the validator: https://github.com/qgis/QGIS-Django/blob/master/qgis-app/plugins/validator.py#L19 -- Alessandro Pasotti w3: www.itopen.it ___ Qgis-developer mailing list Qgis-developer@lists.osgeo.org http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/qgis-developer
Re: [Qgis-developer] [Qgis-user] Better tags for plugins
2015-02-23 16:18 GMT+01:00 Frank M. Howell frankmhow...@gmail.com: My two cents...I understand the validation requirements. But I think the fundamental problem is those plugin authors who submit a plugin for X and then describe it thusly: This is a plugin for X where X is the same name as the plugin. The problem is that this one word or very brief phrase isn't very clear. X may be called Y in another field. There may be several methods to do X (or Y) so the user doesn't really know what's being computed and how. X may do something in one field but may also be an undiscovered solution to a problem in another field so just saying This is a plugin for X just doesn't say much useful stuff. Description is already a required metadata field, of course we have not an AI in place to determine the meaningfulness of the description. This is the list of required metadata fields: 'name', 'description', 'version', 'qgisMinimumVersion', 'author', 'email' Note: I'm always speaking about the official plugins repository. -- Alessandro Pasotti w3: www.itopen.it ___ Qgis-developer mailing list Qgis-developer@lists.osgeo.org http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/qgis-developer
Re: [Qgis-developer] [Qgis-user] Better tags for plugins
2015-02-23 15:41 GMT+01:00 Trevor Wiens tsw@gmail.com: In my experience Paulo has been doing good job of encouraging developers to do just that. If we want to formalize it further it might be a good idea to set the requirements lower for experimental plugins as it happens to be a helpful means of facilitating testing plugins on different platforms. Hi, speaking as the Plugin's repository developer, I would say that implementing different validation rules for experimental/stable plugins would require some not trivial refactoring. But if is there anybody out there willing to help, why not? The code is here: https://github.com/qgis/QGIS-Django/tree/master/qgis-app/plugins and the validator: https://github.com/qgis/QGIS-Django/blob/master/qgis-app/plugins/validator.py#L19 -- Alessandro Pasotti w3: www.itopen.it ___ Qgis-developer mailing list Qgis-developer@lists.osgeo.org http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/qgis-developer
Re: [Qgis-developer] [Qgis-user] Better tags for plugins
Hi Lynton, Il 19/02/2015 19:21, Lynton Cox ha scritto: Please don't forget the newbies need to know exactly what plugins might be used for - some have hardly any description. Once out of the basic QGIS manual finding one's way around isnt that easy. Many amateurs in areas such as local studies realise how useful GIS but see that jargon and acronyms can fog the path. Yes, the About is often neglected. I invite plugin authors to add a reasonable description, but I cannot enforce this. A very good idea would be for the user to write a short note and add it to a feature request, through the plugin bugtracker; even better, this could be added as a Pull Request on the plugin repository. All the best, and thanks. -- Paolo Cavallini - www.faunalia.eu QGIS PostGIS courses: http://www.faunalia.eu/training.html *New course* QGIS for naturalists: http://www.faunalia.eu/en/nat_course.html ___ Qgis-developer mailing list Qgis-developer@lists.osgeo.org http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/qgis-developer
