Making WordPress.org

Opened 7 years ago

Closed 8 weeks ago

#2631 closed enhancement (fixed)

Plugin Directory: No way to view Recently Updated plugins

Reported by: infokurs's profile infokurs Owned by: dd32's profile dd32
Milestone: Priority: normal
Component: Plugin Directory Keywords: needs-patch
Cc:

Description

https://wordpress.org/plugins/browse/updated/ has disappeared.
Now is no way to keep track of plugins daily updates.

Change History (11)

#1 @djr
7 years ago

Thank you for creating this ticket. I am very saddened as well to lose such a valuable way of browsing the plugin directory. Some personal reasoning in this comment on the Make post.

#2 follow-ups: @Otto42
7 years ago

I have to ask the same questions that I ask of people wanting to see "new" plugins.

Why? What benefit does this give you?

This is not a facetious question, I truly want to know, why would you even care about a list of new or updated plugins? People install plugins to fix issues or solve problems. I do not understand why a list of random new or updated stuff is in any way helpful.

Understand that in my view, a list of "updated" plugins is basically a reason for plugin authors to spam us with updates. It is something to be specifically avoided. Because it attracts spammers abusing our systems.

Last edited 7 years ago by Otto42 (previous) (diff)

#3 in reply to: ↑ 2 @infokurs
7 years ago

Replying to Otto42:
Plugin Directory is not only for newbies users, but also for advanced and devs.
Small blog with 2 or 3 installed plugins? - no problem.
....but if in your circle interest is several hundred plugins, if you report many problems and changes ...you need monitor states -is a big problem.
Earlier from anywhere in the world and at any time i knew what was going on.
I came in and saw which plugins were updated and what changed in them.

Now, I do not know quite anything - I have to go to the page of each plugin separately to see if and when it was updated. Yes, i can have a dedicated installation eg. with only 600 plugins for this purpose. I can write a monitoring script that will query the wp.org plugins database .... but why? Why make life so complicated?

#4 in reply to: ↑ 2 @djr
7 years ago

Replying to Otto42:

I have to ask the same questions that I ask of people wanting to see "new" plugins.

Why? What benefit does this give you?

This is not a facetious question, I truly want to know, why would you even care about a list of new or updated plugins? People install plugins to fix issues or solve problems. I do not understand why a list of random new or updated stuff is in any way helpful.

I already explained in the linked comment on the Make post, but to help move the discussion forward, let me explain some more.

Personally I use /updated/ to have a good overview which plugins are being actively worked on. I actively follow plugin development via the Plugin Directory and have several plugins I have not installed yet, but are very promising for our use case (now or in the future when we are expanding parts of the site). Sometimes they lack feature A, sometimes feature B, some stall for a while and some are thriving by the competition by similar plugins in the repo of which I may have competitor A installed, but am checking upon the releases of competitor B to see if this will be a better fit. Some plugin authors may suddenly offer a very interesting premium version of their plugin which I read about in their changelogs.

/updated/ gives me exactly this insight. I keep tabs on the development of several dozens plugins just by browsing /updated/ several times per week.

And before you say: just add them to your Favourites. Favourites doesn't provide any sort ordering, except default name ordering.

Understand that in my view, a list of "updated" plugins is basically a reason for plugin authors to spam us with updates. It is something to be specifically avoided. Because it attracts spammers abusing our systems.

I know and understand, as I have reported several of them over the course of time myself. Let the community help the plugin team here by providing us with means of reporting the biggest offenders. In my experience over +5 years (maybe more) of actively visiting and browsing the plugin repo, abuse is very very limited (and mostly by plugin authors of very, very simple plugins which just include one Javascript file or inserting an extra line in header or footer). I

#5 @djr
7 years ago

Fortunately there's absolutely no spamming now in the Plugin directory... /sarcasm.
https://wordpress.org/plugins/popup-master/

http://d.textopus.nl/uNllP8ZU4X.png

Last edited 7 years ago by djr (previous) (diff)

#6 @tellyworth
6 years ago

  • Milestone Plugin Directory v3 - Future deleted
  • Resolution set to maybelater
  • Status changed from new to closed

#7 @DeFries
6 years ago

  • Resolution maybelater deleted
  • Status changed from closed to reopened

I think the best argument to have this view available is the ability to

  • a) learn how others are solving certain issues and challenges,
  • b) what's going on in the plugin directory as a whole, and
  • c) the general learning factor it provides, and lastly,
  • d) follow trends. Like for instance now, it'd be an interesting view to (sort of) follow how people are implementing Gutenberg integrations

The way I used this view/feed was exactly for this and I miss it. As I know others do too.
I'd be totally fine with making the view/feed a bit obscure and without UI.

#8 @dd32
3 years ago

  • Owner set to dd32
  • Resolution set to fixed
  • Status changed from reopened to closed

In 10408:

Plugin Directory: Restore the /browse/updated route, but don't link to it.

Fixes #2631.

#9 @djr
3 years ago

Thank you. I kept faith and have always kept my favorite bookmark in my top sites list. So happy to see the bookmark finally restores my favorite overview.

#10 @djr
3 years ago

  • Resolution fixed deleted
  • Status changed from closed to reopened

Unfortunately browse/updated doesn't seem to work correctly. Right now it's just the same listing as browse/new. Is there another switch to flip to make it show all updated plugins sorted by last-modified, per the code change?

#11 @dd32
8 weeks ago

  • Resolution set to fixed
  • Status changed from reopened to closed

In 13137:

Plugin Directory: Sort the browse/updated view by modified date.

Fixes #2631.

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