Hello,
We have developed 3 plugins, and we have submitted the first version into the Moodle plugins Directory on May.
We haven't received any feedback yet.
We would like to know long should the process take, which are the mains steps in the validation process, and how can we follow it.
Is there anything we can do to make the process shorter? Is there any way to contact with the team in charge to review the plugins, in order to have more information?
Thank you very much!
In the plugins DB, look in Navigtaion -> Plugins -> Statistics -> Approval queue stats.
The main thing you can do to make the process shorter is to write code that follows all the Moodle coding style rules. Write code where it is obvious what all the code is doing. In particualr, write code where it is clear it follows all the security best practice for handling input, and displaying things without XSS / XSRF security issues.
Obviously, good automated test coverage helps with those things.
The main thing you can do to make the process shorter is to write code that follows all the Moodle coding style rules. Write code where it is obvious what all the code is doing. In particualr, write code where it is clear it follows all the security best practice for handling input, and displaying things without XSS / XSRF security issues.
Obviously, good automated test coverage helps with those things.
The plugin review team are all volunteers, but you could contract a local Moodle Partner to perform a review for you which can also speed up the review process(as you are paying for someone's time to do the review).
Unfortunately there's a bit of a backlog of plugins in the queue at the moment, hopefully someone will get to yours soon!
Am I the only one whose eyebrows are rising when I read about this procedure to speed things up?
If this is a valid path, in my view it should be 100% transparent and completely documented. How much will it cost me? What is the speed gain? Which Moodle partners have an excellent record in reviewing, or am I bound to local partners only?
If this is a valid path, in my view it should be 100% transparent and completely documented. How much will it cost me? What is the speed gain? Which Moodle partners have an excellent record in reviewing, or am I bound to local partners only?
Hey Renaat!
The plugins review team are all volunteers - they are able to pick up any item in the plugin review queue they want and they do not have to pick the one that has been waiting the longest.
More info on the Plugin guardians: https://moodledev.io/general/community/plugincontribution/guardians
As volunteers we greatly appreciate the community performing reviews on any of the plugins in the queue - and if you have funding you can contract a Moodle partner to help with the review of a plugin or even pay for a developers time to submit a bug fix or feature into the Moodle core product (nothing new here). Moodle Partners will often have development staff that can peer-review your code and provide you feedback on it. They can also follow the clearly documented plugin review process here:
https://moodledev.io/general/community/plugincontribution/checklist
Anyone can perform that process and post the review on the Moodle Tracker issue related to your plugins db submission - the Plugin review team are able to review that feedback and if it's of high enough quality and from a reputable source, we are able to approve the plugin without performing a review because it's already been completed and allowing us to spend any volunteer time we have in a more deserving place.
Some of the volunteers in the team also work for Moodle Partners, and will occasionally be put into the position where a client will fund the time for them to review a plugin too - (doesn't happen very often), but it helps the overall eco-system by allowing any volunteer time they have to be spent on plugins that need it the most rather than for example volunteering their time for free to review a commercial plugin for an organisation that gets a commercial benefit out of publishing in the plugins db - personally I'd rather spend my volunteer time reviewing community contributions by enthusiastic developers than a commercial proctoring tool for a company that is getting paid by users of their plugin (usually late on a Friday night when the kids are in bed/not in time I'm paid for...).
We're also really low on active plugins db reviewers so volunteers are always extremely welcome!!
I hope that helps to explain the statement I made above, but let me know if you have any further questions/concerns!
thanks,
The plugins review team are all volunteers - they are able to pick up any item in the plugin review queue they want and they do not have to pick the one that has been waiting the longest.
More info on the Plugin guardians: https://moodledev.io/general/community/plugincontribution/guardians
As volunteers we greatly appreciate the community performing reviews on any of the plugins in the queue - and if you have funding you can contract a Moodle partner to help with the review of a plugin or even pay for a developers time to submit a bug fix or feature into the Moodle core product (nothing new here). Moodle Partners will often have development staff that can peer-review your code and provide you feedback on it. They can also follow the clearly documented plugin review process here:
https://moodledev.io/general/community/plugincontribution/checklist
Anyone can perform that process and post the review on the Moodle Tracker issue related to your plugins db submission - the Plugin review team are able to review that feedback and if it's of high enough quality and from a reputable source, we are able to approve the plugin without performing a review because it's already been completed and allowing us to spend any volunteer time we have in a more deserving place.
Some of the volunteers in the team also work for Moodle Partners, and will occasionally be put into the position where a client will fund the time for them to review a plugin too - (doesn't happen very often), but it helps the overall eco-system by allowing any volunteer time they have to be spent on plugins that need it the most rather than for example volunteering their time for free to review a commercial plugin for an organisation that gets a commercial benefit out of publishing in the plugins db - personally I'd rather spend my volunteer time reviewing community contributions by enthusiastic developers than a commercial proctoring tool for a company that is getting paid by users of their plugin (usually late on a Friday night when the kids are in bed/not in time I'm paid for...).
We're also really low on active plugins db reviewers so volunteers are always extremely welcome!!
I hope that helps to explain the statement I made above, but let me know if you have any further questions/concerns!
thanks,
Hey Dan,
If there is one person who is not questioning the enormous value of the volunteering reviewers, it is me. Again and again they helped me making my contributions better and safer. Perhaps I officially only once or twice said THX to my plugin reviewers, but rest assured, next MoodleMoot I attend, my purse will contain a reserved budget to buy them some brews (local - imported - alcoholic - non-alcoholic - ..., as long the brew does not end with einiken).
I am only concerned that the fast lane will become the new normal, and finding volunteers to review a plugin will become even more difficult.
If there is one person who is not questioning the enormous value of the volunteering reviewers, it is me. Again and again they helped me making my contributions better and safer. Perhaps I officially only once or twice said THX to my plugin reviewers, but rest assured, next MoodleMoot I attend, my purse will contain a reserved budget to buy them some brews (local - imported - alcoholic - non-alcoholic - ..., as long the brew does not end with einiken).
I am only concerned that the fast lane will become the new normal, and finding volunteers to review a plugin will become even more difficult.
It's already extremely difficult to find volunteers to actively review plugins - we really only have 2 people that are regularly reviewing stuff (David Mudrák and myself) - with the occasional but very welcome review by one of the other people in the team.
IMO if more people were willing to fund time for an experienced Moodle developer (or Moodle Partner) to review their plugins it would definitely decrease the existing queue, make it more manageable for the volunteers and generally speed up the review time.
IMO if more people were willing to fund time for an experienced Moodle developer (or Moodle Partner) to review their plugins it would definitely decrease the existing queue, make it more manageable for the volunteers and generally speed up the review time.
I can only second what Tim and Dan already said. Plus, please note, just because you have submitted the plugin for the approval, does not mean you have no other option but to wait. There is always a space for improvements, be it the code itself, documentation, coding style, unit tests, Behat tests etc. It is a very good sign that you really mean with continuous maintenance of the plugin.