Plugin category filtering broken

[brettp]

Couple problems:

• It forwards to the wrong URL
• Reordering plugins via drag and drop will be extremely wrong when filtering.

[cash]

(In [svn:8635]) Refs #2871 advanced plugin filtering works - sorting still does odd things

[ewinslow]

I think that aspect is ok to leave for later.

[cash]

I want to keep this on the list for 1.8 at least because it is confusing.

[ewinslow]

Here's what we do:

Simple view shows every plugin, but only a summary. Can enable/disable, filter by category, etc. Order doesn't matter, so the problem goes away.

Advanced view shows every plugin, does not allow filtering, but you can drag/drop to reorder.

[ewinslow]

This also implies that the <admin_interface> option would be deprecated (since every plugin is shown in both views), but I think that's ok. We have "category" to help with filtering.

[cash]

I closed #3438 as a duplicate of this one.

Looks like we have 2 options:

• Evan's proposed solution. I think it has some usability issues as the simple and advanced interfaces would now feel very similar except for the drag/drop capability and checkbox enabling. One is not really simple and the other is not really advanced - they're just different.

• Turn off drag/drop in advanced view when filtering and leave simple view as is. This also has a usability issue in how do I know that drag/drop is turned off when I have filtered.

I guess a 3rd option is dropping the simple view and figuring out a good way to indicate ordering is turned off.

[cash]

I need this for chapter 3 of my book so sort of a high priority for me. Here is my preference:

• remove simple plugins page. everything on there starts enabled now so a first time user can only disable plugins with it. We also cannot put all plugins there because we lose the point of only showing a subset of the plugins (that shouldn't have dependencies)
• turn advanced plugins into plain "Plugins" so it is just a button in the sidebar menu rather than nested (1 less click)
• On the right side of the advanced section, have an indicator for whether plugin ordering is turned on/off based on the filters. Add a tooltip to that indicator that explains this.
• Look into a toggle for basic/full view for future version if we wanted to support seeing more plugins on one page (though I think the filtering should solve this issue)

[brettp]

This is almost exactly the idea I had in mind. Did we talk about this before?

I think we have to have a simple vs advanced layout, if at least for sorting alphabetically instead of by priority. I don't see this being solved by category filters.

Good to go ahead as outlined. The admin_interface manifest.xml option should be retained if we're planning to implement the toggling.

[cash]

No, I don't think we discussed this. Are you suggesting skipping the simple/advanced toggle and make it alphabetical vs priority toggle?

I think the main tasks are:

• enable the plugin I just installed (currently at bottom of screen)
• find and disable a plugin (scroll through all or filter category
• change plugin ordering (usually because of a problem or requirement of a new plugin - scroll to find)

For some users, finding plugin settings may happen through this interface by habit. This still involves finding a plugin.

The other task that I can think of is review all plugins to see what I want to turn on or off. More of a browse. First thing done by newbies. Categories probably come in useful there.

Using those tasks, it seems like adding an inline search for finding plugins and an option to show all disabled plugins would be useful. I suppose the plugins have creation date so we could also show recently added plugins.

[brettp]

heh again I think you're mind reading.

Are you suggesting skipping the simple/advanced toggle and make it alphabetical vs priority toggle?

No, but make sorting part of the interface. Now that they have creation times sorting can be priority, alphabetical by name or ID, and by "recently added." I think we need to have the simple/advanced toggle change the amount of information shown. In 1.7 I think there's too much, and we added even more in 1.8...Brain clutter.

[cash]

(In [svn:9152]) Refs #2871 filter plugins by active/inactive state

[cash]

(In [svn:9153]) Refs #2871 adding sorting to advanced plugin page

[cash]

(In [svn:9154]) Refs #2871 only showing links for changing priority when all plugins are shown in priority order

[cash]

(In [svn:9155]) Refs #2871 also turning off dragging when not in priority order

[cash]

(In [svn:9156]) Refs #2871 promoted advanced plugins up to be a primary menu

[cash]

(In [svn:9157]) Refs #2871 removed the simple plugins page

[cash]

(In [svn:9158]) Fixes #2871 activate all/deactivate all now sensitive to filtering

[cash]

(In [svn:9161]) Refs #2871 Forgot to update the forwarding for activate/deactivate actions