General thoughts about addons database. and the addons environment

General thoughts about addons database. and the addons environment

by Derek Chirnside -
Number of replies: 3

Helen, thinking about the add-ons database.  

  1. Notifications: I see some movement in the tracker on the item about notifications to plebs as well as administrators.  https://tracker.moodle.org/browse/MDLSITE-2092
  2. Images: Is it a feature or a bug that we cannot add images to the comments?  What is the purpose of comments?  And yes, I do know we can write code to do this.
  3. Automatic plugins deployment: https://tracker.moodle.org/browse/MDLSITE-2107 looks like slow progress, but steady.  It say 'blocker' but gives no version.  And I know this is a huge development.  Think "Security".
  4. Dates on comments: https://tracker.moodle.org/browse/MDLSITE-2091 progress.  Trivial.

I'm interested in this for two reasons: Moodle.org is it seems officially moving towards more in addons and less in core.  Plus I am having to carefully manage plugins at upgrade time.  

In the plugin world, it's still typical Moodle.org semi-organised chaos.  Discussion for addons appears scattered over GIT, the forums, the database, Google docs, other repositories and personal websites.  Some Threads called "latest version for XXX plugin released" and then continuting for 900 days.  Overall though Helen I am feeling more in touch with less effort, and I'm wasting less time merely keeping up with things.

I'm hoping that in the bigger scheme of things with plugins database workflow and functionality sorted, and the flow of approvals improved there will be more time focused by developers who are dabblers.  Some of the issues I follow and are actually very important to me that are worked on by several people with several different patches scattered over GIT, tracker, forums and even ooutside Moodle.  eg notifications for enrolments in the various permutations, reports, CSS hacks.  These are the things that MoodleINC has no real plan for getting into core, and at present these things are limping along.  Improving the plugins process can only help this focus: get a few proper addons made rather than lots of hacks.  It will also have a better channel for testers (ie users) to get things sorted quicker with new versions.  That's my question about comments: if it is for interaction over the detail of the plugins (incl bugs) why no images?

It's for these reasons I think work on the addons database functionality will help the cause quite a lot.

Thanks!!

-Derek

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In reply to Derek Chirnside

Re: General thoughts about addons database. and the addons environment

by Aparup Banerjee -

Hi Derek,

The Plugins directory has in the past few months seen some improvements and, in the months to come, I will be focussing all of my time here in order to speed this up. I do see how nuturing this ecosystem can help the cause and intend to keep working in this area to further enable plugin developers as well as plugin users.

The recent reorganisation of moodle.org/forums included (Helen) creating areas for Add-ons in general, by category and specific to various plugins as well. The aim is to coordinate this with the plugins directory. A discussion url was added and we have to now manually link this up. Hopefully this organises the discussions a little bit more. There was also the notion of automating this link up @ MDLSITE-1889.

 

MDLSITE-1889

 

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In reply to Aparup Banerjee

Re: General thoughts about addons database. and the addons environment

by Derek Chirnside -

Aparup, cool.  I have noticed the progress.

I was quite chuffed to get my first few notiications from the plugins database recently.

Cheers,

-Derek

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In reply to Derek Chirnside

Re: General thoughts about addons database. and the addons environment

by Aparup Banerjee -

yup Derek, for awhile now developers were getting notified. Now anyone can also get notified about comments on any plugin by subscribing to the comments. Notifications also now go out to plugin approvers if the plugin is not approved. I'd like to think that the flow of approvals has improved since then (not forgetting valiant efforts from Anthony Borrow).  Plugin developers should be now getting responses sooner and more within their period (when they are actively involved in their submission i hope).

Automatic plugins deployment is in the works and we should be seeing it shortly. In fact the moodle side of things is already in moodle 2.5 beta. I'd like to know more about what you meant by 'Security' and if that was a reference to privacy or something else.

ps: i didn't even realise i had hit submit in my previous reply.. i was still drafting it big grin

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