I think that what MyBB is lacking is the simplicity in adding plugins. Installing the forum software may be difficult enough for beginners (which in my opinion, MyBB caters for beginning Administrators/Webmasters).
What I'm suggesting is that any plugins accepted into mods.mybb.com, can be instantly installed onto the forum through the plugin panel in the admin panel. This will be able to solve the issue that many users may have, could also be simpler to find new plugins and such.
I love this idea. The only problem is that some hosts don't have certain PHP extensions installed, which would render the system inoperable.
Great idea though
Another problem is that authors would also have to include an instruction file in a universal format (most likely XML?) that tells the system where certain files should go and what possible edits to make to core files (thinking about Google SEO mostly here).
While it's a good idea (one that SMF has too and one that I'm sure has been suggested many times), it would take a long time to implement as a core feature - meaning it likely won't happen (if at all) till 2.0.
I did think about making a plugin to achieve the same thing for my site at one point, but I didn't deem it worthwhile in the end because of all the potential issues and everything.
Making a plugin for that (which already exists:
http://mods.mybb.com/view/plugin-uploader) isn't solving the issue. If the user doesn't know how to install plugins, installing the plugin installer is still a problem.
Tomm M said that plugins in 2.0 will have its own folder in the plugin folder. That way we have a more standardized method to package our plugins. It's also good for this kind of system because, depending on what method you use to download/upload the package, only the plugin folder has to be writable.
(2011-05-11, 12:30 PM)linguist Wrote: [ -> ]Making a plugin for that (which already exists: http://mods.mybb.com/view/plugin-uploader) isn't solving the issue. If the user doesn't know how to install plugins, installing the plugin installer is still a problem.
I know about plugin uploader. What I meant I was thinking about doing (and this was a while back) was a package manager kind of thing where users could browse plugins through the ACP and install them directly from there (like in wordpress or SMF). I decided it wasn't worth the effort though.
(2011-05-11, 12:55 PM)Aries-Belgium Wrote: [ -> ]Tomm M said that plugins in 2.0 will have its own folder in the plugin folder. That way we have a more standardized method to package our plugins. It's also good for this kind of system because, depending on what method you use to download/upload the package, only the plugin folder has to be writable.
But that's assuming that's how plugins authors are going to do that. I personally will not likely do that.
The problem isn't really MyBB it's authors who don't follow standards. Plugins are extremely difficult to make 100% perfect that will install on all themes. That's normally where things go wrong anyways. Hooks work very well already.
(2011-05-11, 03:29 PM)labrocca Wrote: [ -> ]But that's assuming that's how plugins authors are going to do that. I personally will not likely do that.
The problem isn't really MyBB it's authors who don't follow standards.
If the new one-folder plugin will be introduced that will probably become the "standard" and if you are not going do that then, you are the one not following "standards". Also, I haven't found any official documentation yet about where extra plugin files should go. The
Development Standards also doesn't mention anything about file locations.