A year or so ago I laid out a suggestion for a plugin repository to replace the current disorganized and decentralized system. It wasn't received that favorably because it would take additional development effort, but more importantly it would imply that Guild had some responsibility to insure the function of community plugins. In the hopes that both of these problems might be alleviated, I've hacked together a basic website to serve the purpose, and I've gotten to the point where it's ready for testers to find all the holes I've missed.

Enjoy! :D http://calder.byethost8.com/voplugins

-Calder

I can't in good conscience support a project with a name that sounds like VPR.

What benefit does this provide over the vo-wiki.com plugins page?

1) All versions of everything are posted in one nice neat place.
2) Users can easily search for, rate, (in the future), and record the plugins they have installed.
3) In the future, the 'My Plugins' list will eventually allow a plugin auto-updater, but that'll have to wait until I have time again, or someone else wants to write it.

And I'm pretty sure VPR probably wouldn't want to be confused with any possible pronunciation of 'VOUPR'. :D

And I'm pretty sure VPR probably wouldn't want to be confused with any possible pronunciation of 'VOUPR'. :D

So call it the Vendetta Plugin Management System - Vendetta PMS

Lol, use it or don't use it as you wish, but it's supposed to be a repository so it'll be called that, and I'm not naming anything "Vendetta PMS"! :D

Would it be possible to get a DynDNS, pointing to the site, so you could use something memorable like voplugs.whatever.com? Not literally that, but you get the idea.

I'll be the first to say that this is an excellent idea; I like the user counter, as well as the ability to rate plugins. Will users also be able to comment on them?

Lastly, the concise description is great. Makes it very explicit what the plugin does.

Edit: And before anyone starts knocking it, go check out the site; the features, combined with previous versions on file, makes it easy for you to find what you're looking for.

Edit 2: I'm just going to call it "voo-per". I think that's the phonetic pronunciation.

Thanks skelbley! The ratings column is really just a placeholder right now, which I'll make actually work when I get an ounce of time, along with allowing managers to edit plugin and version descriptions and add other managers. But those things are amenities, and I figured I'd post now to get comments and suggestions earlier rather than later. It would also be nice if people started uploading plugins so we could put it through some actual stress testing.

As for the DNS, if this catches on and people start using it, I'll definitely pay $10 a year to get "voupr.com" or something. :D And yes, I was kind-of hoping for that sort of comical pronunciation conundrum after I saw how the acronym turned out! ;-)

On a final note, I think the only way I would add comments are if the size of the Vendetta community suddenly explodes, but as it is right now forums are perfectly sufficient for posting information and feedback on plugins. I would really like to keep this as stripped down and easy to use as possible, and I honestly think comments only detract from the experience at this point. That, and keep in mind that this will ultimately just be a front-end for a version-control system that could keep a user's plugins updated and synced for them.

You're right, a comments section wouldn't particularly be necessary. And they version-control system is a lofty goal; I hope this pans out, it would be very nice.

Suggestion: if there is a thread about the plugin, link to it on the plugin's download/info page. That way people can quickly look into the plugin and see what's been going on/said about it. Otherwise, good stuff, looks like.

Place for expanded description and help would be good.
Also screenshots, author (and contact info?), maybe a link to website (if there is one).

Hmm... I don't want to get into needing screenshots or websites for every simple little plugin, but what I could do is have a 'links' section that redirects the user to different helpful sites/threads/instructions. If you've ever seen how Ohloh.net manages this, that's what I would like to try and emulate.

Basically, the plugin managers would be able to add an arbitrary number of 'links' of different types, (website, forum/thread, ReadMe file, screenshots or whatever else you can think of), and these would appear for users in a second little info box below the main one on the plugin page. That way we wouldn't clutter the interface and the essential function of the site, while still giving users direction for their inquiries.

Well screenshots aren't usually needed but for HUD related plugins they could be useful.
It doesn't need to be visible on the full list, just on plugins' page, which could also have a longer description.

I think both the longer description and screenshots would ideally belong in links to a ReadMe file or image gallery respectively. I might add image thumbnails or something, but I don't want to get into the mess of storing and providing bandwidth for full images. What I might do is give each plugin a small 256x256 picture they can use for a screenshot or icon like what Wikipedia does with their info-box on the side, and that could be set to redirect somewhere.

I'm just wary of adding anything that adds complexity without really serving the real function of the site. Right now, I have a few things I'd like to work out before I get to links or screenshots or icons or screenshots or anything, like rating, editing and post-login redirection, but after that hopefully we'll have more people's plugins and suggestions to play around with

The purpose of the site is to let people find plugins, so how does describing what plugin does in more than one sentence is not 'real function'?
And i find noone reads read me's btw.
Scratch pics if you want, tho one per plugin would hardly amount to much traffic i think, but then one could just as well link it.

Well, it's not a matter of providing that information or not, but where to put it. I think a detailed description of what exactly a plugin does or how to use it is more appropriate in a ReadMe file, and with the link system you could view it without downloading the plugin. It's essentially a matter of keeping "additional information" as out of people's faces as possible. For those who want it, it'll be there but it won't jump out at you if you're just clicking through and you know exactly what you're doing. It essentially goes back to the distinction between a repository and something like Apple's app store: a repository eases the task of managing, downloading and updating 'packages', while and app store like thing is supposed to act as a sort of market to give the user as much information as possible before they decide to make a purchase. If and when there's a 100,000 plugins for VO we may need to think about making a plugin-store for VO... :D

Changes:
*rating now works
*pages now redirect properly after login
*form data is saved after submission failure

I figured if it's on the page where you download the plugin that's out of people's face, it's a pretty empty page as is.

And how does ranking go with your ideology of it not being a store? I mean if you know what you are doing, you don't need ranking either >_>

Ratings are mainly intended as another way to sort the plugin list. Out of curiosity, where would you put the screenshots on that page? Take into account that while there aren't that many versions now, this page will eventually contain all the version that have been uploaded as well as another links box flushed right below the info box.

EDIT: I think I'll actually take your suggestion on the detailed description, though I hope it doesn't get misused to provide instructions... We'll see.

Is your site down? Here's what I'm seeing when I try to load the page:

Warning: mysql_connect() [function.mysql-connect]: Lost connection to MySQL server at 'reading initial communication packet', system error: 111 in /home/a3958620/public_html/voplugins/database.php on line 11

Cannot connect to database backend.

Lol, 000webhost guarantees "99.9% uptime", so I think you might be experiencing the .1% concession I've made in order to get free hosting. :D