Serendipity Forums

Hello,
I use serendipity for half a year now and it does what I need and I like the program and the fantastic community here.

Thinking back to my early days with s9y, I remember some troubles to find the right plugins and to understand what they do.

In the plugin manager and in Spartacus is only a small explanation and it was a problem that all plugin-names are translated but in the forum the english name was used. So starting with s9y was not as easy as it could be.

Therefor I would like to suggest some changes in the plugin-section of future versions of s9y to enhance the usability of the plugin-manager and the ability for beginners to find help.

1: the plugin-manger and spartacus should show the original name beside the translated name. So it would be much easier to search and ask for help.

2. Every plugin should have a url field in the config-menu. This url could be used to redirect to the forum thread or better (maybe later) to a dedicated help page. (Maybe two links, one for the english spoken original thread and one to set for the translator if appropriate).

3. for every new version of a plugin in spartacus there should be the possibility to show a short "what is new" section. Maybe this could also solved with a link to a "official" developer thread in the forum.

konus wrote:1: the plugin-manger and spartacus should show the original name beside the translated name. So it would be much easier to search and ask for help.

I'd go even further than that: Let's lose the translated name altogether. Let's just call the plugins by their, well, plugin names. serendipity_event_* and serendipity_plugin_*.

Point is: The other day, I was pointing a user in the German forum to the Freetags plugin. I ended up writing something like "Freie Artikel Tags a.k.a. Freetags a.k.a. serendipity_event_freetag" just to make sure she got it right. That's ridiculous. Just call it serendipity_event_freetag, that's it.

konus wrote:2. Every plugin should have a url field in the config-menu. This url could be used to redirect to the forum thread or better (maybe later) to a dedicated help page.

That would indeed be nice, but it would mean that someone would actually have to write these help pages

konus wrote:3. for every new version of a plugin in spartacus there should be the possibility to show a short "what is new" section.

I second that since I have also requested it before

YL

Hi!

Those are good suggestions. I just committed a change to s9y so that those ChangeLogs and Documentation links are availabel (see docs/NEWS).

I'll see to implement this into spartacus.s9y.org soon.

All plugins might now need to set the "website" rpoperty bag attributes to the documentation URL, and can optionally specify a "documentation_XX.html" file (per language, at least "en"). Also when a ChangeLog file is found, that's used as version history.

Please have a try with the snapshots created tomorrow.

Regards,
Garvin

@garvin:
Good news!
Is it technical possible to put the documentation link into the language file and then display it within spartacus and plugin manager? That way it could be changed very easy.

yellowled wrote:That would indeed be nice, but it would mean that someone would actually have to write these help pages

I know this would be the hard task. But:
1. in most cases there are already discussion threats on the forum (as a quick and dirty solution).
2. In the long term it it would be a good possibility for "non-coders" to contribute. (like me )

greetings Konus

Hi!

Is it technical possible to put the documentation link into the language file and then display it within spartacus and plugin manager? That way it could be changed very easy.

The way it currently works is that a plugin can either specify a fixed URL, or simply deliver a documentation_XX.html file (XX = language key) that will be shown when the "Documentation" Link is clicked.

So someone would simply need to write "landing pages" for each plugin (on the s9y.org wiki preferrably) and then the links to those wiki pages can be committed to the plugin's by adding a "website" documentation link.

Regards,
Garvin

Hi!

So a plugin writer would only need to create a file called "documentation_en.html" (for example), include it in the plugin directory, and it would be displayed by clicking the link?

Exactly, that should work!

Regards,
Garvin

After installing 1.4beta2 today, I would like to give some feedback on this issue.
After searching for updated plugins within spartacus, it found and displayed a new version from serendipity_event_staticpage, but it did not display a link to the changeLog or to the documentation at this stage. I understand that this would only be possible, if the changelog is somewhere online, but it would be a nice feature.

After installing I went to the configuration of the plugin and found the three links:
* Dokumentation http://board.s9y.org/
* Versionsgeschichte http ://www.dd4kids.de/plugins//ChangeLog
* Lokale Dokumentation http ://www.dd4kids.de/plugins//documentation_en.html

Obviously the plugin name is missing in the last two urls.

Update: in spartacus everything works fine!

konus wrote:After installing I went to the configuration of the plugin and found the three links:
* Dokumentation http://board.s9y.org/
* Versionsgeschichte http ://www.dd4kids.de/plugins//ChangeLog
* Lokale Dokumentation http ://www.dd4kids.de/plugins//documentation_en.html

Obviously the plugin name is missing in the last two urls.

This problem still consits on my system. Links within Plugins are without pluginname.

Update 25.05.2009: Problem should now be corrected (in cvs) and be part in the next version. Thank you, garvin!