Plugin Directory Admin: Limit State Switching for Plugin Statuses

[Ipstenu]

There are a lot of states for Plugins.

• new - Pending Initial Review
• pending - Reviewed and pending dev feedback
• approved - Plugin is approved but nothing's uploaded yet
• rejected - Plugin is rejected
• published - Plugin is live and everyone can use it
• disabled - Plugin is closed but still pushes updates
• closed - Plugin has ceased to be

The flow goes like this:

• New -> [pending|approved|rejected]
• Pending -> [approved|rejected]
• Approved -> Published (automated by committing code)
• Published -> [disabled|closed]

This flow should be one-direction. I should be able to go from New to Approved and Approved to Published, but I SHOULD NOT be able to go from Published to Pending. This is a problem because 'pending' is a default WordPress state for a post, and as far as WP cares, Pending is totally something you can go from Published back to.

The only exception to the one-way rule is Published/Disabled/Closed which is okay to circle through. But basically if a plugin is approved, NO ONE should be able to manually publish it (it must be done via SVN), and similarly if a plugin is Published, we should never be able to set it back to pending.

That said it brings up a thought about how to handle rejections. Previously it was a one-way street. If we could 'recover' rejections, it would save a submission. Not show how I feel about that.... If we did it, Rejections should be only movable back to Pending.

[SergeyBiryukov]

2796.patch​ implements the described flow, including Rejected → Pending.

This first pass only works on Edit Plugin page, and doesn't cover the Status dropdown in Quick Edit (haven't found a non-hacky way to replace it yet). Maybe Quick Edit should be disabled for plugins altogether?

[Ipstenu]

Maybe Quick Edit should be disabled for plugins altogether?

That's fine. We don't use it and while I wish we could sometimes, since we've managed to mitigate the whole double-submission dance, it's not a requirement at all.

tl;dr We can totally disable quick-edit for plugins.

[SergeyBiryukov]

Just realized the patch doesn't allow for plugins to be moved to Trash :) Is that something admins should be able to do (e.g. for spam submissions), or Rejected status would be sufficient?

[Ipstenu]

We should never be trashing plugins. It's not necessary for us.

[SergeyBiryukov]

2796.2.patch​ is a second pass that includes disabling Quick/Bulk Edit for plugins, which is almost useless anyway. A more helpful one could be implemented in the future if needed.

Should be good to go.

[SergeyBiryukov]

2796.3.patch​ is an updated patch per discussion with @Ipstenu:

• Approved plugins can be closed or disabled.
• Rejections cannot be recovered.
• Approve/Reject displays an "Are you sure?" window.
• The status dropdown is replaced with buttons.

[SergeyBiryukov]

Screenshot: 2796.3.PNG​

[Otto42]

In 5573:

Plugin Directory: Change edit actions dropdown to buttons with specific states. props @SergeyBiryukov. Fixes #2796

[coffee2code]

In 5709:

Plugin Directory: Remove 'Trash' action.

Permissions already prevent plugins from being trashed.

Props SergeyBiryukov.
See #2796.
Fixes #2983.