combining API-plugin repositories

[corbosman]

Hi all, ive been wondering if it would be an idea to start consolidating some google code repositories under 1 spot. (awaiting a future new plugin repository).

I currently own the google code repository named 'roundcube-plugins' for my plugins, and im more than willing to add committers to that repository, so we can share 1 repository for all our plugins.

We could then also start looking at some additional functionality like translation frontends (I could modify my translation frontend to work straight off the roundcube-plugins repository).

[rosali]

I would join this project. We have to discuss how to organize the download section. I think it's best to provide only bundles for download (f.e. corbosman_bundle.zip, johndoh_bundle.zip, myroundcube_bundle.zip). If we would have there a link for each plugin I'm afraid that it gets too crowdy. The content of the bundles could be described on the frontpage.

Just my 5 cents.

[corbosman]

Bundles are kind of hard to maintain though. After every change of 1 of the plugins you'd have to update a bundle. Also, it's a bit of a pain for users to only get bundles. Someone may modify one of your plugins slightly, which makes unpacking a bundle dangerous as it may overwrite their changes.

Right now in the download section I keep older versions around. That is not necessary of course. If we dont show older versions, I think a long list of plugins wont be so bad. If you look at it now, ive set a 'Deprecated' tag on all older versions, so you dont see them unless you check 'All Downloads'.  Maybe we can even use tags somehow to identify plugin authors so one could list only their own plugins.

Another option is to provide a bundle of all plugins say once a month. Thats a bit of work though.  Just throwing out ideas.  I feel we're not using the amazing plugins that exist to their full potential. Like, the plugin list on the wiki is a bit of a chaos.

[SKaero]

I like the idea, why don't we have a site front end where you can search and sort by category, also have screenshots and rating. We could also utilize some php and cron-jobs to build plugin bundles ever so often.

[corbosman]

I know the roundcube team is working on a plugin repository (my company donated the hardware and hosting), so i dont want to go too far and end up with duplicate functionality. I have not seen it, so I dont know what it offers. Thats why im suggesting to only clean up some of the chaos right now.

One thing im not too happy about is that the plugins are currently spread all over the place. This means I will only use plugins from someone that I somewhat trust to do the right thing. It's so easy to introduce security risks, either knowingly or unknowingly. By having a more centralized repository, all our eyes can look at checkins and see whats going on. Maybe by starting to consolidate, we can create a more trusted set, and other plugins will join.

I also find the wiki page to become almost too unwieldly. I cant see anymore whats new, whats been updated recently, etc. I have to resort to viewing the wiki history. Maybe we can structure that page a bit more.

[SKaero]

I had only head talk about getting a new plugin repository I didn't know that it was being worked on.