Note: Green is used to highlight a feature which is implemented, Brown means its being worked on. Red is a feature which is not going to be implemented before SoC finishes.

Introduction

I propose a Plugin/Theme update system for WordPress.
I plan that it should:

• Allow Notification of Plugin/Theme updates
• Allow searching of Open source repositories At present bundled support for wordpress.org/themes.wordpress.net is provided, others can be added by filters
• Allow single-Click install of Plugins/Themes Via Search pages
• Allow Plugins/Themes to be updated from within the Control panel
• Check Requirements for Plugins/Themes before installing Only for Wordpress.org plugins so far, More support to be added

I plan to have this implemented as a Plugin, which fully integrates into WordPress.

Deliverables

Phase 1

• Determine a XML-based Interface for WordPress.org/extend/plugins/ and WordPress.org/extend/themes/ to allow for searching/interfacing..
• Start documentation for Plugin/Theme Developers on how to allow their plugins to work better with this Plugin This is being worked on at present, support for Phase 4 part 1 will follow this.

Note: The Documentation isnt available online as its been changing now that i've moved things into filters/actions, but its moving into final stages of changes.

Phase 2

Start coding, Create a plugin which can at least:

• Check for updates of existing Plugins/Themes and Notify the WordPress Admin.
• Allow searching of WordPress.org's Plugin/Theme Repositories.

 Phase 3

Continue coding, Extend the plugin further to:

• Allow the Installation of new Plugins/Themes found via the Searching mechanism. Alternate Plugin/Search provider sites can be added via Filters (with custom function to search it)
• Allow the Installation of Plugins/Themes by uploading via the browser
• Check The requirements of the Plugins/Themes before allowing installation/Activation. Should check for:
• 1. WordPress Version
  2. PHP Version (and extensions loaded)
  3. MySQL version
  4. WordPress Plugins installed

 Phase 4

Extend plugin further to:

• Allow Plugins to be Automatically upgraded to when a new version is released Undecided; A link to the upgrade page is supplied via email to the user if an update is available, Not sure if "Automatic" should be allowed
• Allow the Administrator to "Dismiss" an update, that is, To mark the update as unneeded and not be installed. Only for The Notices displayed to the user, Plugin page still shows update available.
• Depending on WordPress views, Implement a external update mechanism, This should allow Plugins to define a non-WordPress.org domain for the Plugin to check for updates on. This would be used by non-GPL compatible plugins.Functionality built in to allow per-hostname update retrieval mechanism, with failback to generic XML retrieval
• Extend the plugin to check for available WordPress Updates.

Phase 5

These are *highly* optional components, and in order which i see that they'd be implemented

•  Create a plugin for Plugin/Theme creators WordPress installs, will simplify the hosting of the Update files on 3rd party webpages.(If the plugin is created to allow non-WordPress.org update sites)

This plugin (Called "Wp-update-Manager") has been created during the initial stages of coding.

• Allow Wordpress to update itself

There is currently a plugin which attempts to update WordPress itself, I have not used it myself yet, However have looked at how its implemented, unfortunatly it required files to be chmod to server-writable, I feel that it can probably be done via FTP. Update: This plugin called "One Click", and can be found here: http://weblogtoolscollection.com/pluginblog/2007/07/31/oneclick-for-wordpress/ It also seems to support FTP now, which it didnt when this was written.

Other Notes

What i have outlined here covers 6~7 of the top 50 wanted Ideas on WordPress.org.

I feel that if i can accomplish half of this, A large number of users will be happy, If i can accomplish more(Which i feel i can) Then more will be happy.

I'm sure theres going to be a few who would rather it done differently, and i'm open to any suggestions on final implementation.

I can be contacted on the following email:

contact+wordpress-soc@my.domain

(my.domain = dd32.id.au)