Plugins shipped with s9y core

[yellowled]

I just now updated to 1.4, and i realized I had some permissions issues in plugins/. That's already fixed, but as I went through plugins/ checking permissions, I figured: "Do we actually have to ship all these with s9y?"

Don't get me wrong, I understand that s9y is supposed to be shipped with some basic plugins to get users started, but you have to admit that we ship a lot of plugins almost nobody uses. And even if some people use them, most of our users don't. So that's quite some baggage in the core distribution.

Then again, there are some plugins on spartacus which might be more appropriate to ship with the core - freetags, static pages.

Maybe we should think about exchanging some of those or is there a good reason they are bundled plugins?

YL

[konus]

Installing and updating plugins with spartacus is so easy and much faster than downloading, unzipping and uploading the plugin-files manually. Therefore the core files should be as small as possible, with little or no overhead.

The same is true for templates. After choosing my own style, I will never use one of the other supplied templates. How about a spartacus for templetes?

[Don Chambers]

The same is true for templates. After choosing my own style, I will never use one of the other supplied templates. How about a spartacus for templetes?

You already CAN use spartacus to download templates.

[garvinhicking]

Hi!

Spartacus is not available on all systems. We need to ship a reasonable default set of plugins. Some plugins have already been moved to Spartacus in the past, but we also need to think about people upgrading from older s9y versions to newer ones so that they do not loose an up to date version of their plugin.

So if we can compile a list of plugins that are unnecessary, we can easily discuss them.

Stripping all templates but the defualt one is done in the serendipity-lite release package.

Best regards,
Garvin

[konus]

I think that it is important to make (leave) everything as clear as possible, to reduce need for support. So every change should take this into consideration. Size and Speed are normally not that important anymore, since most of us have broadband access now. (I wonder how to live without one )

But how about making a separate plugin-package (with all or plugins) for those poor people without spartacus?

Some of the plugins I would consider advanced use would be:
serendipity_event_templatechooser
serendipity_plugin_templatedropdown
serendipity_event_trackexits
serendipity_plugin_shoutbox
serendipity_event_trackexits
serendipity_event_karma
serendipity_event_creativecommons
serendipity_plugin_recententries

[yellowled]

So if we can compile a list of plugins that are unnecessary, we can easily discuss them.

A. Plugins I would consider more or less redundant since nobody seems to use them or because they seem very special:

* some of the text formatting plugins: serendipity_event_bbcode, serendipity_event_textile, serendipity_event_textwiki. Don't get me wrong, I think it's great to have them, and especially textile is in fact a great alternative to WYGIWYS editors. But I really don't think they belong in the core distribution.

* search related: serendipity_event_livesearch, serendipity_event_searchhiglight. Both very special, both not exactly common as far as I can see, both not exactly "basic functions". Your mileage may vary, after all, this is a discussion

* template stuff: serendipity_event_templatechooser, serendipity_plugin_templatedropdown. The only purpose for these seems to be a theme portfolio, which is kind of a specific blog.

* "weird stuff": serendipity_plugin_history, serendipity_plugin_shoutbox. i think noone besides me really uses the history plugin Also, you may call me a conservative fart, but I really don't see why a blog needs a shoutbox.

B. Plugins which I think are much more suited to be included in the core:

* serendipity_event_contactform: I remember someone asking in the forums if it was possible to integrate a contactform with s9y. That's how "secret" Spartacus sometimes is

* serendipity_event_freetag: Almost everybody uses tags. Period.

* serendipity_event_staticpage: Some people have already asked whether this could be included in the core. Let's at least ship the plugin with the core. There is hardly any blog without static pages these days.

That's about it for me, but I'm sure other people will add other plugins. Maybe this wasn't such a great proposal after all

YL

[garvinhicking]

Hi!

About textwiki I agree. Textile and BBCode will definitely stay, I feel those are very vital. Those are common markups that need to be supported without the user having to go through hassle of downloading additional plugins.

Livesearch is IMHO also something that a blog should have as an easy one-click feature, as well as highlighting search phrases. Actually, I'd love to see the latter plugin developed into more SEO-capable features.

* template stuff: serendipity_event_templatechooser, serendipity_plugin_templatedropdown. The only purpose for these seems to be a theme portfolio, which is kind of a specific blog.

To me they ease up a lot changing a template easily to setup your blog; if those first need to be downloaded as well, I don't think one would be able to use it for the first installation phase.

* "weird stuff": serendipity_plugin_history, serendipity_plugin_shoutbox. i think noone besides me really uses the history plugin Also, you may call me a conservative fart, but I really don't see why a blog needs a shoutbox.

I agree about the shoutbox and the history plugin.

* serendipity_event_contactform: I remember someone asking in the forums if it was possible to integrate a contactform with s9y. That's how "secret" Spartacus sometimes is

Moving plugins out of spartacus and into the core is something I'd really like to avoid for some reasons: First we'd loose the existing sourcecode revision history when moving. Second, the plugin would then be removed from spartacus, where a lot of peopel expect those plugins already. third, people who have installed older versions of that plugin will not be able to easily upgrade it anymore.

This is my reasoning why I actually think we should not move any plugins to the core itself for being maintained there. What could be done is like a serendipity-cms release like serendipity-light, where we add those common plugins?

Regards,
Garvin

[yellowled]

Moving plugins out of spartacus and into the core is something I'd really like to avoid for some reasons: First we'd loose the existing sourcecode revision history when moving.

I know there are tools to convert cvs repos to svn. However, I don't know if that would work here

This is my reasoning why I actually think we should not move any plugins to the core itself for being maintained there.

Sounds perfectly reasonable. So it wasn't a great proposal after all. No biggie

What could be done is like a serendipity-cms release like serendipity-light, where we add those common plugins?

Nah, c'mon. That would be like bundling them together as a "turn s9y into a cms"-package or something. Plus, it will only increase the number of people asking which distribution to use

YL

[blog.brockha.us]

My 2cts:

My biggest problem with shipping plugins with s9y: If you have to apply a fix to one of the "core plugins", the only (official) way of shipping the fix to the people is make them update their complete s9y installation.

I would be happy, if we could find a way to make the core plugins available for upgrading via Spartacus. The way I would prefer having core plugins is: Move *all* of them to the Spartacus repository and fetch a snapshot of them when delivering a new release of s9y.

When all plugins are upgradeable via spartacus, it would not be important (to me) anymore, which plugins are labeled "core" and which not. The size of the s9y archive is no problem in these days, I think. The only problem is the missing way to upgrade them in a "nice way".

[judebert]

I think we don't do that because our core and plugins are on different servers.

But I like the idea. The "core plugin" concept has bothered me for a while.

[Timbalu]

Just found this thread again.

I think for upcoming 2.0 this needs to be further discussed deeply, since some of the used arguments today do not fit any more!
And I would like to see any "conservative fart" to lift that ribbon and dance again...

[onli]

Good idea. Was there any result of this old thread? Did we really not discuss this on a newer thread?

I like the idea of Grischa. In 2.0, I would like to remove all core-plugins but spartacus, but on install a selection of them should get installed. This selection could include:

• Staticpages
• Spamblock
• Spamblock_Bee
• Spamblock_Bayes(?)
• Autosave
• Findmore
• Livesearch

And in the sidebar:

• Quicksearch
• Categories

Also a version of the dashbboard-plugin, if the frontpage by then is still as unused as now by the admin-backend itself.

[yellowled]

• Autosave
• Findmore
• Livesearch

Not that I'm a very good measure for this, but I have never used any of those in any blog.

YL

[Timbalu]

I think it will all be some kind of a personal choice and subject...

I would like to discuss this on some other level, which would be:

Which Plugin is something we would have normally implemented into the core, if we hadn't this genius plugin system. These plugins (*) - this is what I'd pled for - should move into the release zip (**), but should also be available via Spartacus. I think this is the best way to go.


(*) Additional to some already mentioned, I would add an integrated autoupdate (to 2.0 startpage)

(**) If already activated is something that would need to be discussed one by one

[onli]

Which Plugin is something we would have normally implemented into the core, if we hadn't this genius plugin system.

Hm, ok, we can try. I think it would also lead to the question: "which functionality we think is essential for s9y?".

Well, the autosave-plugin i only mentioned in case of it not being in the core by then already. I mean the new one of course :) So that fits either way.

The Share-Buttons of the findmore-plugin are so common in blogs right now that i think it belongs into that selection.

I agree with adding the autoupdate-Plugin. That is pure core-functionality.

The livesearch-plugin is not really essential in a "no blog can live without it"-way, it just makes the search way easier to use. Every blog should use it.

Staticpages provides essential functionality - building the About-Page and the impressum - but that plugin still needs a better UI (hope i come to building the new one).

And the spamblock-plugins are essential as well, though I'm not sure if bayes with its own menu and buttons really belongs into that selection. Maybe that should be merged more with the normal admin-backend then.

Regarding them being activated: Sure think so. If we provide them as default-plugins, it should be sound to activate them immediately. Else they probably are not a good fit for the default selection. Ah, and whether spartacus fetches them or they are in the .zip is probably not really imortant, as long as they are normal plugins updateable via spartacus.

More suggestions? What about a markup-plugin?