less features. more plugins. brainstorm.

[Dan Milward]

Hey Team,

The upcoming 3.9 branch is really starting to take shape in our minds and in our efforts. Its going to be a very exciting release.

One of the things that keeps coming up is the idea about a smaller core where we take away features and release them as Plugins. So I'd like to pose a question to you all.

If you were to remove functionality and replace it with canonical Plugins that were supported by the core team, where would you start? What would you take out and make into a Plugin?

I look forward to brainstorming this one with you :)

Best,
Dan

[Andy Ide]

IMHO, if you want to go this way,

The core should be as small as possible BUT

It is confusing to new users as to which plugins are required, so can I suggest that you have a 'Core Plugins' that are deinfitely needed?

--
But having said that, as a dev, I would rather just download the whole lot as one file, and it does everything for me.

Having to download multiple files (core then multiple plugins then the paid plugins) is confusing to a new user - and we want as many users using this software as possible.


So perhaps some sort of good plugin override system is the go? Afterall, I would rather a monster plugin with the ability to turn off needless plugins as better for what I want to do.


Having said that, I've been deving in wp-ecommerce for 4 months and have done 3 shops - so please take this into account if my commentscause a desk flipping rage.


Thanks Dan


Be Well
Andy

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[Gary Cao]

One of the thing we can spin off is the IntenseDebate comment system, ShareThis, "How Customer Found Us Survey", "Facebook Like" etc. In my opinion, not every store needs those features.

Import & Export could also be made into separate plugins (just as WordPress core's Importer is spun off into multiple smaller plugins).

In addition to having less features, we should also think about "hiding features user doesn't need", or at least make an effort to make sure features user doesn't need don't get in their way. One example is our Settings page. There are just too many options there.

We should move all the fundamental most commonly used options to the top, and hide all the other less used options into a collapsible box titled "Advanced" for example. We can definitely learn a lot from Google Chrome's Preferences page. There are only four tabs: Basics, Personal Stuff, Under the Hood, Extensions. Firefox also has a powerful about:config page that contains all the advanced switches that not all users need to know there.

Or we can organize groups of settings into metaboxes and let the user collapse / expand sections that they need, and re-order them as they please.

Another idea is to have a 5-minute configuration wizard that asks the store owners several questions to determine the type of store they're trying to set up, and turn on / off options to fit their needs and show them where their most relevant features are located.

[David Westbrook]

I agree with Gary on almost all of these items.  Particularly the items which can and are already handled by other WP plugins which include all the social media functions, and intensedebate.    

Other items that could broken out into plugins: Coupons, cross sales,  all of the shipping modules and payment gateways. Unlike the social media ones, I would give these careful consideration before jumping on them.  One of the things people like about wpec is how feature rich it is.  

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[Zao Web Design, LLC]

I agree with Gary on pretty much everything.

Agree with David on Cross-sales and social media - we could have canonical cross-sales, and recommended Social Media.  Disagree on shipping/payment though, they're not doing any harm being available.

Thanks,

M. Justin Sainton
Zao Web Design, LLC
Principal / Project Manager
http://www.zaowebdesign.com
(c) 971.222.6330
(f) 1.413.723.0396

[Tracey Kemp]

Hi all,

If there's one thing I rarely use, it's Coupons, so i could definitely see that coming out of core into a plugin. I also think the Coupons area could do with being expanded to include broader promotions that don't necessarily require promo codes. Like buy X get Y free or % or $ off when certain conditions are met. Not wanting to talk up the competition but I think this is one thing that the Shopp people do really well. It would be great to do something along those lines but better. In a plugin.

I'm not quite up to speed with coding plugins but I can certainly help with designing the user interface and speccing it out if anyone is keen to implement this.

Cheers,

Tracey

Tracey Kemp | +61 418 483 493
skype:dogshindleg | twitter:@dogshindleg

web design & development | print design & finished art

PORTFOLIO: http://dogshindleg.com

ZOMBIE DOG ENTERTAINMENT: http://zombiedogentertainment.com

[Zao Web Design, LLC]

Good feedback - definitely agree on expanding the scope of what is possible with coupons - and I like what's possible with Shopp, too.  And I hardly ever use coupon codes personally for my own personal sites, either.

However, I think taking Coupons out of core would be a mistake.  It's a feature that probably 80-90% of the clients I work with use, or know they'd like to use at some point.  To require them to install and configure a plugin is generally asking too much for that type of user.  To me, it's definitely well within the 80/20 rule.  That said, if you have UI/UX suggestions, I'm sure everyone would love to see!

Thanks,

M. Justin Sainton
Zao Web Design, LLC
Principal / Project Manager
http://www.zaowebdesign.com
(c) 971.222.6330
(f) 1.413.723.0396

[Ben Huson]

I already split off the Cross Sales into an external plugin:
http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/wp-e-commerce-cross-sales/

Been a while since I tested in against trunk to could probably do with
a bit of TLC.

There's also a Google Code page for it here:
http://code.google.com/p/wp-e-commerce-cross-sales/
Let me know who needs adding as admin/commit users to this and the
WordPress repo

I also committed a patch a while ago to show an install link next to
the Cross Sales setting in the admin so upgrading users could easily
install the plugin from there. It appears to have been overwritten in
some of the recent settings changes but I'll look at adding that back
in.

Now that we use Custom Post Types many of the social plugins around
should work with WP e-Commerce so perhaps we could suggest to users
plugins which would work?

I'm in 2 minds about coupons - they are one of those things that are
standard in many other ecommerce systems and people may expect that
functionality to be there.
I agree that something that is lacking at the moment is the ability to
create offers such as 3 for 2 etc (and also the ability to set offers
like this that do not require a coupon code - useful for sale season).

- Ben

[Andy Ide]

I concur. Coupons are a great selling point and all clients ask for it.

[Dan Milward]

Well Tracey is pointing out that not all her clients use it. BUT I think that its core enough to the business e-Commerce that it should be totally core :P

d

[Tracey Kemp]

I think it all depends on how easy it is for the average user to get, install and update these if they were plugins. Would they all be included in the download and installed with the core plugin, then activated separately from within WPEC? Or would they be just like any other plugin that you have to search out and install separately? It just has to be easy if it's going to be a step forward. Though I really don't know what your 'average' user is capable of. 

Tracey Kemp | +61 418 483 493
skype:dogshindleg | twitter:@dogshindleg

web design & development | print design & finished art

PORTFOLIO: http://dogshindleg.com

ZOMBIE DOG ENTERTAINMENT: http://zombiedogentertainment.com

[Ben Huson]

I think it would make sense for any plugins that are developed by the
WP e-Commerce team to be easily available to install via the admin?

- Ben

[Dan Milward]

100% agree with that.

Best,
Dan

On 15/11/11 11:26 AM, Ben Huson wrote:
> I think it would make sense for any plugins that are developed by the
> WP e-Commerce team to be easily available to install via the admin?
>
> - Ben
>
> On 14 November 2011 22:09, Tracey Kemp<tra...@dogshindleg.com> wrote:
>> I think it all depends on how easy it is for the average user to get,
>> install and update these if they were plugins. Would they all be included in
>> the download and installed with the core plugin, then activated separately
>> from within WPEC? Or would they be just like any other plugin that you have
>> to search out and install separately? It just has to be easy if it's going
>> to be a step forward. Though I really don't know what your 'average' user is
>> capable of.
>>
>> Tracey Kemp | +61 418 483 493
>> skype:dogshindleg | twitter:@dogshindleg

>> web design& development | print design& finished art

>>>> web design& development | print design& finished art

[Roy Ho]

I would like to add that if any of these features are taken out of
core and into plugins, I would suggest that the features are bundled
into 1 plugin package instead of 5 or 10 individual plugins which have
to be installed/maintained individually. This would make it more
friendly and much easier to keep up to date.

[Ben Huson]

Roy,

..although packing all as 1 plugin the reduces the benefits of having
multiple plugins:

1. Only install what you need for smaller codebase and reduced memory usage
2. Manage and maintain separate functionality so that point releases
can be release just for specific functionality.

I agree that no-one wants to install 10 extra plugins, but key areas
of functionality should be separate plugins I think

- Ben

[Zao Web Design, LLC]

I hope/think Roy was talking about something more akin to this ->  http://wpcandy.com/reports/the-tgm-plugin-activation-class-on-github 

That would allow for a smaller core code-base, the extras turned off by default (not using up core codebase or server memory.) and a simple activation click (no searching, no download required) to activate.  Something like that could work quite elegantly if we made sure the activation UX was obvious enough for both new users and those upgrading to be aware of the changes.

Thanks,

M. Justin Sainton
Zao Web Design, LLC
Principal / Project Manager
http://www.zaowebdesign.com
(c) 971.222.6330
(f) 1.413.723.0396