orphan plugins

mrdale · 2009-04-23 06:41:38

Oh for heavens sake, alex is working for wordpress… I think we can officially count on his non-compliance.

els · 2009-04-23 07:02:15

wet wrote:

Well, as the larger fraction of plugins is properly parented, I’m a bit reluctant to open yet another forum to serve the adoption process.

Tagging a plugin’s thread with [ORPHAN] plus eventually opening a plugin request thread if a plugin turns orphaned and has an interested user base would hopefully provide enough exposure.

I see your point, no problem.

colak wrote:

So now we have to decide which plugins are orphaned

I don’t think we need to restrict our actions to the officially confirmed abandoned plugins. If we mark a plugin as orphaned and the author notices this he can always let us know, if he doesn’t notice it, our assumption was right ;)

For this reason I think that a new topic should be opened for ied_plugin_composer and after that, a last post to the new topic should be added before closing that thread.

I agree. Add a last post and a line at the top of the first post, linking to the new thread. Stef, as soon as you’ve opened your new thread we will do this.

I suggest we just start marking the orphans – add [ORPHAN] in the subject, and add a notice at the top of the first post that says that the plugin is not maintained anymore. When in doubt, we can always consult together here(?).
I can probably start digging later today or tomorrow.

Bloke · 2009-04-23 08:18:46

Els wrote:

If we mark a plugin as orphaned and the author notices this he can always let us know, if he doesn’t notice it, our assumption was right ;)

Hehe, nice! BTW, some of the hard work may have been done for us. Someone has trawled the plugin list and marked a lot of ‘old’ or unnecessary (because of new features in the core) plugins as [archived]. Perhaps those should be reviewed initially as well to see if they really are ‘orphaned’ or simply ‘unnecessary’. I guess there is a subtle distinction?

I wonder if these forum posts could also be tagged as such during this exercise? anc_hide is a good example where a link to Textbook’s <txp:hide /> in the first line of the thread would probably be appropriate?

colak wrote:

a new topic should be opened for ied_plugin_composer and after that, a last post to the new topic should be added before closing that thread.

Fine by me as well. I’ll open one later and do my usual “revision list” to point to each release in the old thread so people can find out how things have progressed.

As you suggest, Else, if someone could add the link to the new thread in the first post of the old thread then people coming there from its link at textpattern.org (which nobody except wet/ruud or Yura can alter) can immediately find the latest version. Thanks for offering to sort this out for me, and thanks wet for allowing Els and colak to administer this.

redbot · 2009-04-23 10:30:08

Bloke wrote:

…I’ll open one later …

Maybe you should rename it smd_plugin_composer?
After all you’ve made enough changes to the original.

Bloke · 2009-04-23 12:20:47

redbot wrote:

Maybe you should rename it smd_plugin_composer?

I have considered this on a few occasions but it didn’t feel right given that vast swathes of the code is Yura’s. But perhaps to avoid confusion from this point on I’ll officially rebrand it; as it were. A logical place to do that from is with v0.9. But as it’ll only work with TXP v4.0.9 I’ll hold off creating the new topic. The good thing is that using the new plugin lifecycle system in 4.0.9 I can automatically migrate all your existing prefs over to smd_* prefs when you install the new plugin, so the upgrade path is simpler than trying to switch over right now and have redundant prefs left lying around.

colak · 2009-04-23 13:06:53

wet wrote:

Tagging a plugin’s thread with [ORPHAN] plus eventually opening a plugin request thread if a plugin turns orphaned and has an interested user base would hopefully provide enough exposure.

I started the job and there far more abandoned plugins than anticipated a search in the plugin author support forum for [orphan] will give you a vague idea of how many I marked till now.

With an exception to those who expressly announced that they do not support their plugins any longer I am considering any plugin authors who did not post in the forum for the past year as having abandoned their plugins.

Once the job is finished I will collate all plugin names and post them all in a place where an announcement can be made that these plugins are up for adoption.

I have a problem with adopted plugins (zem_contact and ied_composer are two). Should they be marked as [orphan]ed or should the thread (for zem_contact) just be closed (I already provided a link from there to zcr).

Bloke · 2009-04-23 13:34:44

colak wrote:

there far more abandoned plugins than anticipated

Blimey! Good work there colak. More than I’d expected too.

I will collate all plugin names and post them all in a place where an announcement can be made that these plugins are up for adoption.

Cool, but some of them as I mentioned above are simply just not necessary any more or have been used in favour of other, more recent, plugins. anc_hide is one (replaced by core txp:hide); kgr_safe_excerpt is another which was pretty much dropped in favour of the now also abandoned rss_auto_excerpt. Posting such out-dated plugins up for adoption is probably not really necessary and might cloud the issue somewhat.

I have a problem with adopted plugins (zem_contact and ied_composer are two).

Don’t orphan ied_plugin_composer because it has a Daddy: me! Leave it open and active for now and I’ll do what you/Els/redbot suggested when TXP 4.0.9 is released, then the old thread can simply be closed. I’d vote for closing the old zem_contact thread and providing the forwarding link as you have done. The same will probably become true of sed_sf when gerhard builds it into glz_custom_fields but I think some people will still prefer a section-field-style plugin without extra custom fields so that one should probably be offered for adoption directly as well.

Last edited by Bloke (2009-04-23 13:37:33)

els · 2009-04-23 13:56:23

colak wrote:

Once the job is finished I will collate all plugin names and post them all in a place where an announcement can be made that these plugins are up for adoption.

bloke wrote:

some of them as I mentioned above are simply just not necessary any more or have been used in favour of other, more recent, plugins

Can we add [ARCHIVED] instead of [ORPHAN] to those that are superfluous because replaceable by (a combination of) core tags, add a notice referring to those core tag(s) and close the thread? (Hmm… mrdale will never speak to me again if I do that to chh_if_data… ;) ) And just close the threads of those that can be replaced with a more recent plugin (and refer to it)?

wet wrote:

eventually opening a plugin request thread if a plugin turns orphaned and has an interested user base

Looking at the number of recent support request posts in these threads would give us an idea of how desirable adoption would be, can we use that as a guideline?

bloke wrote:

I’d vote for closing the old zem_contact thread and providing the forwarding link as you have done.

Agree.

colak · 2009-04-23 14:41:32

There are some plugins whose functions can be reproduced by core tags but there are some like glx_if whose frontpage function goes far beyond to what txp can do at this time.

Bloke wrote:

Cool, but some of them as I mentioned above are simply just not necessary any more or have been used in favour of other, more recent, plugins. anc_hide is one (replaced by core txp:hide); kgr_safe_excerpt is another which was pretty much dropped in favour of the now also abandoned rss_auto_excerpt. Posting such out-dated plugins up for adoption is probably not really necessary and might cloud the issue somewhat.

Els wrote:

Can we add [ARCHIVED] instead of [ORPHAN] to those that are superfluous because replaceable by (a combination of) core tags, add a notice referring to those core tag(s) and close the thread? (Hmm… mrdale will never speak to me again if I do that to chh_if_data… ;) ) And just close the threads of those that can be replaced with a more recent plugin (and refer to it)?

I guess this decision will also depend on whether the plugin is still compatible with the latest txp.

Some old plugins which I would include Dean’s first plugin (was that the first ever?) somehow still works just fine or it was anyway until a couple of txp versions ago at which time I deactivated and deleted it.

any help in identifying long dead and (more importently) incompatible plugins would be appreciated.

ps>. what are we are going to do with Sencer’s plugins?

els · 2009-04-23 15:25:33

colak wrote:

any help in identifying long dead and (more importently) incompatible plugins would be appreciated.

I’ll have time later tonight and tomorrow.

what are we are going to do with Sencer’s plugins?

Mmm… asy_wondertag is one example of a plugin that is definitely superfluous since 4.0.7, but there are still users who for whatever reason are using an older version, and therefore still need asy_wondertag. So it’s probably a bit harsh to close the thread ;) Regarding Sencer’s plugins, maybe we can make an exception for him and ask him if he’d mind if we label his plugins ‘orphaned’?

some like glx_if whose frontpage function goes far beyond to what txp can do at this time.

I doubt that ;)

maniqui · 2009-04-23 15:29:55

Don’t forget to mark Postmaster (or any other plugin by Ben Bruce) as orphaned!

els · 2009-04-23 15:35:10

Thanks :) I wish there was a way to search for plugins by author… But wait, maybe we can search on txp.org!

Edit: yeah, I think that could be useful: http://textpattern.org/?q=mdn_ and then search the forum for the plugin names.

Last edited by els (2009-04-23 15:38:47)

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#13 2009-04-23 06:41:38

Re: orphan plugins

#14 2009-04-23 07:02:15

Re: orphan plugins

#15 2009-04-23 08:18:46

Re: orphan plugins

#16 2009-04-23 10:30:08

Re: orphan plugins

#17 2009-04-23 12:20:47

Re: orphan plugins

#18 2009-04-23 13:06:53

Re: orphan plugins

#19 2009-04-23 13:34:44

Re: orphan plugins

#20 2009-04-23 13:56:23

Re: orphan plugins

#21 2009-04-23 14:41:32

Re: orphan plugins

#22 2009-04-23 15:25:33

Re: orphan plugins

#23 2009-04-23 15:29:55

Re: orphan plugins

#24 2009-04-23 15:35:10

Re: orphan plugins

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