A Plugin Store

[Mohammad]

Tiddlywiki has no plugin store!

Why?

A Plugin library like Official Plugin Library can collect free ones on the net and this forum and lets people simply install plugins.

The plugin library can alert people these are not official.

What do you think?

[Jeremy Ruston]

TiddlyWiki 5 already has a plugin library that has been open to contributions for many years. However, we have found that plugin authors prefer to publish plugins with their own infrastructure so that they have more control. There might be improvements to the infrastructure that would make it more attractive to plugin authors, but I think there’s a fundamental tension between the day-to-day convenience of plugin authors and the long term needs of the community, and we probably need to approach it differently.

Best wishes

Jeremy

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[Mohammad]

Hi Jeremy,

 Thank you for your reply and clarification.

1.

While the official library is great and I understand your concern to deliver correct, operable, safe and secure plugins to users, but is it possible to have something like Play Store

and lets authors have more flexibility and take more responsibility?

2.

I understand the Official Plugin Library get no update util the new release of Tiddlywiki

a. is it possible to have updated plugins between Tiddlywiki releases?

b. is it possible "Plugin Library" shows installed plugins with an alert when one open the Get More Plugins and there is an update for an installed plugin?

    I asked this, as I started to use the pluginlibrary to distribute Kookma plugins!

--Mohammad

On Saturday, March 7, 2020 at 1:11:17 PM UTC+3:30, Jeremy Ruston wrote:

TiddlyWiki 5 already has a plugin library that has been open to contributions for many years. However, we have found that plugin authors prefer to publish plugins with their own infrastructure so that they have more control. There might be improvements to the infrastructure that would make it more attractive to plugin authors, but I think there’s a fundamental tension between the day-to-day convenience of plugin authors and the long term needs of the community, and we probably need to approach it differently.

Best wishes

Jeremy

On 7 Mar 2020, at 09:36, Mohammad <mohamma...@gmail.com> wrote:

Tiddlywiki has no plugin store!

Why?

A Plugin library like Official Plugin Library can collect free ones on the net and this forum and lets people simply install plugins.

The plugin library can alert people these are not official.

What do you think?

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[Mat]

Jeremy Ruston wrote:

TiddlyWiki 5 already has a plugin library that has been open to contributions for many years. However, we have found that plugin authors prefer to publish plugins with their own infrastructure so that they have more control.

C'mon - is that really a fair description? In all practical terms, it is not possible for someone like me (nor, I assume, Mohammad) to get anything published there because it doesn't live up to the quality standards. And I must assume the process to qualify a plugin is as problematic as qualifying a regular PR, i.e there's a high chance that it just stays in limbo. Do I misunderstand something? (I hope I do.) 

<:-)

[Mohammad]

I agree with Mat,

The current procedure for publishing through Official Plugin Library is not straight forward and there is no clear procedure to know what are the minimum requirements for a plugin to get qualified for Official Plugin Library!

If it is through current PR mechanism, then it is not the right procedure, I don't think the core developer team need to go through details of plugin implementation! This is what I see in the current PR mechanism.

In my opinion the plugin submission should be like Play Store or App Store! The author should be able to update the plugin whenever it is required and can publish without that much of bureaucracy.

I see a wealth of plugins, themes, ... buried all over the net and it is quite tedious to find them specially for newbies!

This is https://www.dokuwiki.org/dokuwiki page and I have published several plugins there several years ago.

The procedure was: register with an email. develop the plugin, test, publish Nobody is in this between No GitHub knowledge required, no bureaucracy

Examples of plugin: https://www.dokuwiki.org/plugin:asciisvg?s[]=mohammad

I hope Tiddlywiki can find a way to facilitate publishing and lets people with less programming knowledge can contribute.

--Mohammad

[TiddlyTweeter]

... I think there’s a fundamental tension between the day-to-day convenience of plugin authors and the long term needs of the community, and we probably need to approach it differently.

 I'd say, also, the TW plugins are often quite different than what is thought of as an "add on". Mainly because they can change the actual functions in the TW (or at least scale off the software design in a quite morphic way).

If you look at plugins for tools like TinyMCE or CKEditor, simple examples of "work-in-one-web-page" they "scale-off" their underlying code, but they don't intervene in it.

I get confused whether the TW thing to promote should be an "empty" + "plugin 1" + "mod 2" + "plugin 9" etc. Or, better, a full made app?

I guess what I am wondering is are we pushing for better plugin libraries for "developers" or "end-users"?

Honestly, my thoughts are not well formed here. But if you take idea of an "app" being a "Lego kit", often centrally of a few plugins, how can libraries best deliver that?

Hope I'm not too off topic!

Thoughts

TT

On Saturday, 7 March 2020 10:41:17 UTC+1, Jeremy Ruston wrote:

TiddlyWiki 5 already has a plugin library that has been open to contributions for many years. However, we have found that plugin authors prefer to publish plugins with their own infrastructure so that they have more control. There might be improvements to the infrastructure that would make it more attractive to plugin authors, but I think there’s a fundamental tension between the day-to-day convenience of plugin authors and the long term needs of the community, and we probably need to approach it differently.

Best wishes

Jeremy

On 7 Mar 2020, at 09:36, Mohammad <mohamma...@gmail.com> wrote:

Tiddlywiki has no plugin store!

Why?

A Plugin library like Official Plugin Library can collect free ones on the net and this forum and lets people simply install plugins.

The plugin library can alert people these are not official.

What do you think?

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[TiddlyTweeter]

Ciao Mohammad

I see possible benefit in some kind of central repository. BUT I also think about "what is it for?"

The issue is this: would you not need some kind of categorisation to make sense of a large repository?

My thinking is that some serious plugins are, basically, full tools that convert TW empty into an application. 

Tiddler Commander is a good example.

My question: Does it make most sense to have it as a plugin, or simply an already ready complete TW?

Thoughts

TT

[Jed Carty]

I think that Jeremy's description is fair. I have seen many people decide they are not going to contribute a plugin because they think that they don't fit the quality standards required, I don't remember ever seeing a plugin rejected because of that.

The plugin library has been open for a long time, and it is possible to create plugin libraries that are accessible in the same way as the official library. I haven't looked into it but I think you could probably host a plugin library on github/GitLab Pages so the hosting requirement may not be much of an obstacle. Adding a custom plugin library to the normal Get More Plugins interface just requires importing a single tiddler.

And if someone wants to publish a plugin to the official library and isn't sure if the quality meets whatever community standards exist they are welcome to ask for assistance.

I agree that the procedures for getting plugins in the library aren't clear, but that is mainly because so few people have tried it is always kind of ad-hoc and there aren't really set procedures to do it.

If you want things to be clearer than we need someone to make them that way, a lot of the work done on things like this hasn't gone anywhere because no one uses it.

For a long time I was maintaining a listing of available plugins on the wiki reference wiki as a sort of plugin store, but it was barely used so I stopped. Setting up a system for adding plugins could be a significant time investment and from experience if it is just one of the more experienced devs doing it no one is going to use it.

If you need evidence of that look at how many requests are made here for things that already exist in Bob or in the secure server that I made.

I think I have had 3 people ask about setting up the secure server, only one followed up with anything and that was just one time.

[Mohammad]

On Monday, March 9, 2020 at 6:12:50 PM UTC+3:30, TiddlyTweeter wrote:

Ciao Mohammad

I see possible benefit in some kind of central repository. BUT I also think about "what is it for?"

The issue is this: would you not need some kind of categorisation to make sense of a large repository?

This is useful specially when you look for special tool like Commander or Gallery! 

My thinking is that some serious plugins are, basically, full tools that convert TW empty into an application. 

Tiddler Commander is a good example.

My question: Does it make most sense to have it as a plugin, or simply an already ready complete TW?

Well, Commander is a special case, but for example a TOC tool designed for authoring is a plugin can be added on demand! I fully agree to have some end-user oriented apps!

but we need also the empty edition. It is like the raw material for making different things.

[Mohammad]

Thank you Jed,

 Still I say, Official Plugin Library and Community Plugin Library can be different! and I expect Tiddlywiki.com support it!

 

--Mohammad

[TiddlyTweeter]

Jed Carty wrote:

I think that Jeremy's description is fair. I have seen many people decide they are not going to contribute a plugin because they think that they don't fit the quality standards required, I don't remember ever seeing a plugin rejected because of that.

Right. 

... For a long time I was maintaining a listing of available plugins on the wiki reference wiki as a sort of plugin store, but it was barely used so I stopped. Setting up a system for adding plugins could be a significant time investment and from experience if it is just one of the more experienced devs doing it no one is going to use it.

I more than agree. Even though I don't contribute much to TW (embarrassed), I absolutely see this pattern.

The question in my mind is whether a central repository might ease this frustration of dedicated doing for no more than one-man-and-a-dog. Fragmentation of resources? Not sure. Not enough users overall? Not sure. More capability in TW than actual need? Not sure. 

But there sure IS an issue.

Best wishes

TT

[TiddlyTweeter]

Well, Commander is a special case

Right. It is special in that it so comprehensive.

But consider the case of a novel writer who needs extensions of several kinds ... plugins AND mods to behavior. 

In their case a finished wiki  is even more relevant! 

I think it is a lot to expect a newbie to figure out they need to install 3 plugins, 4 modifications etc.

You see what I am pointing to? A bare big plugin list without context is more helpful to "developers" than end users.

To utilise a big list not knowing TW already you absolutely would need a framework of "purpose" IMO.

Just thoughts

TT

[Mohammad]

On Monday, March 9, 2020 at 7:35:03 PM UTC+3:30, TiddlyTweeter wrote:

Well, Commander is a special case

Right. It is special in that it so comprehensive.

But consider the case of a novel writer who needs extensions of several kinds ... plugins AND mods to behavior. 

In their case a finished wiki  is even more relevant! 

I agree! These are kind of apps or editions and shall be available as a final product. 

I think it is a lot to expect a newbie to figure out they need to install 3 plugins, 4 modifications etc.

You see what I am pointing to? A bare big plugin list without context is more helpful to "developers" than end users.

Right! 

To utilise a big list not knowing TW already you absolutely would need a framework of "purpose" IMO.

That's correct. I myself use a demo page to explain what is the plugin! Next step is to tag them and categorize them like todolist, extended markup (formatting) etc...

[Birthe C]

Your demo pages and the quality of them is important.

Plugin library make it fast and easy to install plugins, but I still need to know how to use them.

Birthe

[Mohammad]

Thank you Birthe,

On Monday, March 9, 2020 at 10:26:19 PM UTC+3:30, Birthe C wrote:

Your demo pages and the quality of them is important.

Plugin library make it fast and easy to install plugins, but I still need to know how to use them.

That is true, so they will be there and when you install a plugin from library, you can click and see the readme and links to demo pages!

By the way, I think the readme is good to briefly show what is the plugin, what is its purpose (use case) and belong to which category!

 --Mohammad

[TonyM]

Folks,

I believe a central repository is essential to ease the locating of plugins but we need to consider other distribution types like Editions, macros, stylesheets bundles and test data etc... Ie we need a store that may include published libraries but more. Using Mohammad's search indexing would help publish multiple subject area wikis with cross wiki search.

• Publishers can use this as their official version as well. but need to link to there github and demos as well, this is a matter of establishing a culture and some helpful but informal standards.
• Ideally we would have the ability to poll the central repository to see if there is a newer version and install / reinstall it
• I think there could be an open list which anyone can submit to, and get from, that is migrated to an Official library after a close look or set of votes.

I have my own Plugin collection of most things I come across but it is not necessarily up to date. It is 15mb in size and one trick I use is to install them but disable them, and have a method to "register plugins" allowing me to capture extra details on the plugin without touching the plugin, the key reason are missing source urls and the addition of my own keywords to support search.

Regards

Tony

[Mohammad]

See also this feature request

 https://github.com/Jermolene/TiddlyWiki5/issues/4486

I think Plugin Library can be improved to server as an easy to use tool for installing new plugins!

--Mohammad