Improving the Plugins Page: Follow-up

Following up on this earlier post: https://make.wordpress.org/core/2014/05/28/improving-the-plugins-page/

After chatting a bit with Alex Shiels, Nacin, and Helen, I’ve put together a first pass at what an improved “add new pluginPlugin A plugin is a piece of software containing a group of functions that can be added to a WordPress website. They can extend functionality or add new features to your WordPress websites. WordPress plugins are written in the PHP programming language and integrate seamlessly with WordPress. These can be free in the WordPress.org Plugin Directory https://wordpress.org/plugins/ or can be cost-based plugin from a third-party” page could look like:

I based the new page off of the updated “add new theme” page. Instead of going with filters you can add together to search results, I’ve opted to use some broad categories. Filtering doesn’t really work with plugins, especially filters outside of different categories — if you check “backup” in security and “galleries” in media, you’re not likely to get any results. Clicking on a categoryCategory The 'category' taxonomy lets you group posts / content together that share a common bond. Categories are pre-defined and broad ranging. would bring up results weighted by # of downloads, popularity, reviews, etc. If we did end up adding some additional filters, they could be for things like version compatibility or language.

We’ve already talked a bit about how a visual might not be the best way to scan for new plugins, and how we need to highlight plugin descriptions more. We also talked a bit about the possibility of having a better landing page if you don’t have any plugins installed on your site, that would show a mix of featured/popular plugins and categories to browse through.

This doesn’t affect installed plugin management — we were thinking that would remain mostly the same, maybe with some minor updates.

One thing we really want to nail down is the average plugin install workflow: “I want WordPress to do X. It doesn’t seem to do X. Maybe a plugin can help me! Here’s how I would look for that plugin. Here’s how I would evaluate and compare the plugins returned by how I looked for them. Here’s how I would install it/activate it.” What does your workflow look like?

#plugins