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consistent plugin file structures

0

I’d like to put a suggestion in the box:

It would really be great if you standardized your file structures in all your plugins so it’s consistent and also cuts out steps for installing. Whilst your plugins are all awesome, they are much more laborious to install than normal plugins (even manually). whilst one plugin update is easy, it gets pretty tiring when updating/installing even 10 plugins.

Two things would help

1. remove the update notifications plugin so if we unzip a plugin, we don’t have to unzip a second file. the notifications plugin is a plugin in your own repo anyway.

2. Maybe you have a specific reason for this, but why not do it the same way as wordpress plugins? By that I mean if you unzip this plugin, just move the contents to the right folder. I envisage a folder and a php file (which is used to include the right files within the folder if used in mu-plugins, otherwise not used in plugins)

That would make life that little bit easier (I imagine for you too?)!

Sun, 5 Dec 2010 15:00:26
  • drmike
    • DEV MAN’s Mascot

    Well just lost another post. Guys, I really hope we can get this resolved.

    Here’s the short answer. I;m not going to retype all of what I typed.

    remove the update notifications plugin so if we unzip a plugin, we don’t have to unzip a second file. the notifications plugin is a plugin in your own repo anyway.

    You first had this as a zip within a zip. I and others have asked for this to be removed for months now with no real response. It’s an issue for me as I don;t do well with a mouse and the unziping an unzip isn;t something that I can do well. Hoping that someone will finally see the light and maybe make this change. To be honest though, all of the downloads have a unique file name and I have a feeling that’s the reason for this.

    As to the bit about wordpress plugins, please remember that this is wordpress multiuser, a different level of software. Much of our installs are actually hardcoded and some in fact use outside crons to work. I know James’ edublogs is the same way and I know Matt went on record a few times a very long time ago saying the same thing. One of these installs operates a lot differently than a standard “OMG! I’VE GOT A BLOG! LOOK AT MY KITTY PICTURES!!” blog. Sounds silly but there really is some big differences between the two.

    There’s the short response. Hopefully it’ll go through this time.

  • Marcus
    • Site Builder, Child of Zeus

    about the wordpress plugins bit you wrote, not sure I explained myself well:

    for example, spam comment pack is a set of plugins. nothing wrong with that, but why does the avg user need to see this?

    mu-plugins gets really messy if we keep on having to install loads of individual plugin files, why not bung all files into a subfolder, and one php file can include the subfiles. e.g.:

    comment-spam-pack.php – includes all plugins inside folder below

    comment-spam-pack

    — pluginfile1.php

    — pluginfile2.php

    — etc.

    I’m pretty sure if you added just the folder to plugins, all plugins inside will be included, and if you add both files above in mu-plugins it’ll work neatly.

    like this (and removing update-notifications) it’s just a case of moving the plugin file(s) to the right folder.

  • Aaron
    • Ex Staff

    You’ll be pleased to know that this is high on my priority list. If you’ve been following new plugins here released this fall, we’ve been making them all work primarily from the /plugins/ dir, though keeping compatibility with the /mu-plugins/ dir for those who need it.

    In fact you can expect an announcement on this around the beginning of the year.