Improvements to Advanced view for plugin authors

[tellyworth]

This is a general ticket for iterative improvements to the Advanced view. Plugin authors in particular need better stats, and other improvements to help direct their attention to important issues.

[tellyworth]

Possible improvement: show trend line on downloads chart. (Also switch to columns for consistency?)

[tellyworth]

Possible new chart: show active install growth/shrinkage over time, with trend.

[tellyworth]

Possible new table: show recent popular search terms that led users to the plugin page. Only for plugin owners!

[tellyworth]

In 6245:

Plugin directory: add JS for active install growth chart.

Also add a trend line to the downloads chart.

See #3016

[tellyworth]

In 6249:

Plugin directory: add active install growth chart to advanced view.

See #3016

[obenland]

@tellyworth Any more work necessary here, or can this be closed?

[daveshine]

@tellyworth
You posted a suggestion about adding a new info for plugin authors about recent search terms - this was in February 2017. Is this still being worked on?

This would be a blessing for plugin authors to gather more information in order to make their plugin pages more friendly and relevant for users.

I agree that this should only be available to logged-in authors of the plugin (not committers, but the "owning" .org accunt only).

Can we expect this will land somewhere soon on our plugin pages?
I have quite a few plugins on .org and this would totally help me.

Thanks in advance!

[dufresnesteven]

Hey! @daveshine

I chatted with @tellyworth and he informed me that discussions were had and ultimately we decided not to move on with that feature due to its potential risk for 'gaming'.

With that in mind, we'll be closing this ticket.

[coffee2code]

In 12097:

Plugin Directory: Remove active install growth chart from advanced view due to insufficient data obfuscation.

See #3016.
Reverts [6249].

[coffee2code]

In 12098:

Plugin Directory: Remove JS for active install growth chart due to insufficient data obfuscation.

See #3016, [12097].
Reverts [6245].

[mnelson4]

Woah, removing the active install growth chart seems very sudden and drastic. It's the only good metric plugin owners and users have to assess progress of which I'm aware, and its loss hurts the community. I assume this was a closed-door security or privacy decision taken by a larger group than just the committer.

Ticket #6511 has more recently been created advocating to bring it back.

[shareaholic]

If "active install growth" is not possible for WP plugins, a similar example - the Chrome Web Store - reports the following for Chrome Extensions, which are also quite helpful if one could report these for WP plugins:

• Daily Installs (note: not downloads)
• Daily Uninstalls
• Weekly Active Users

They also report:

• Number of Impressions/Pageviews to the Extension's Web Store page

Chrome Web Store: ​https://chrome.google.com/webstore/category/extensions