Re: [gedit-list] Plugin installation method

[Tom Metro <tmetro+gedit gmail com>]

Jean-Philippe Fleury wrote:
> See the following discussion:
>
> "Gedit Plugins - Unofficial Enhancement Proposal"
> http://old.nabble.com/Gedit-Plugins---Unofficial-Enhancement-Proposal-td9111487.html

Quoting Zeth Green:
> 1. Single Plugin Format 

Great concept, but...


> ...plugins can be organised in two ways. They can be a single
> file, or they can be a directory. This inconsistency will make it very
> complicated for graphical plugin installation and especially
> uninstallation. 

I think if you use a more capable packaging format, then using 
subdirectories or not has no impact on installation and uninstallation 
effort.

Independent of that motivation, keeping plugins organized in their own 
subdirectories is probably a good idea.

This may still require putting the plugin description file in the main 
directory, as recursively scanning for them may not scale all that great 
as plugin count goes up.


> 2. Single Plugin Location
>
> It is too confusing for the user to have more than one plugin
> location. I am proposing that there will now only be one place to
> install plugins. I.e. ~/.gnome2/gedit/plugins 

This may be a useful simplification.


> 5. No bundled plugins. 

I don't think this change provides much benefit. Bundled plugins serve 
as a proving ground for functionality that might be on the verge of 
incorporation into the core product.

But there is a problem related to bundled plugins - there is typically 
little to no information about what they do and how they work. If the 
user has to go visit some web site to learn about the plugin - perhaps 
even to become aware of the plugin - then you've lost most of the befit 
of having it bundled. The plugin manager needs to provide space for more 
explanatory text, and the bundled plugins need to supply that text. 
Ideally there should also be a link to a home page for each.


> I am proposing that all the currently bundled plugins, and those of
> the extra plugins pack, be incorporated into a new plugins website. 

A better mechanism for finding and presenting the plugins should be one 
of the major numbered items in this proposal.

It would be nice if Sourceforge or similar sites had some mechanism that 
made it easy to organize and host plugins, which are more frequently 
becoming a part of projects.

I've seen some projects repurpose an issue tracker for this. Each plugin 
was a ticket, and the file was an attachment. A hack, but easy to implement.


The remainder of the proposal sounds reasonable.

 -Tom