Mark Jaquith 8:37 am on March 22, 2013

Should we tab the Plugins page with Manage…

Should we tab the Plugins page with Manage Plugins / Install Plugins in the same way that we’ve done with Themes? Why or why not?

Franz Josef Kaiser 10:14 am on March 22, 2013

Personally I don’t see any value in adding tabs. What I would see value in, is having a way to organize or group plugins. Currently I have ~200 custom written plugins that I manage with this [1] 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, which makes my local stack quite slow. As a developer I’d really like to have any kind of way to better organize those plugins and not use a slightly fragile, slow plugin that took a lot of time to develop.

From a user perspective I’d like to see an UIUI UI is an acronym for User Interface - the layout of the page the user interacts with. Think ‘how are they doing that’ and less about what they are doing. that is equally designed and usable to the one we have for themes. Basically both are the same so I would expect to have a lower entry barrier for new users. From a coreCore Core is the set of software required to run WordPress. The Core Development Team builds WordPress. dev perspective this would as well offer a chance to remove redundant code pieces when both screens can share parts of their view building code.

[1] https://github.com/franz-josef-kaiser/WP-Plugin-Directories
- Russell Heimlich 12:54 pm on March 22, 2013
  
  +1 on the idea of better organizing plugins. I thought about writing a 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 that lets you type in a field and the plugins shown get whittled down to only show the ones that match parts of what you type. Similar to the filterFilter Filters are one of the two types of Hooks https://codex.wordpress.org/Plugin_API/Hooks. They provide a way for functions to modify data of other functions. They are the counterpart to Actions. Unlike Actions, filters are meant to work in an isolated manner, and should never have side effects such as affecting global variables and output. topics feature of this page http://www.pewresearch.org/topics/
- Scott Kingsley Clark 1:25 pm on March 22, 2013
  
  I also would like to see some sort of categorization (whatever that is) in the plugins list.
- Shane Pearlman 3:10 am on March 23, 2013
  
  +1 of on 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 organization, at least in regards to add-ons and extensions to larger plugins. The events calendar has a number of add-ons and it would be nice if they were grouped visually.
Russell Heimlich 12:55 pm on March 22, 2013

Yea I think so. It follows the theme of tabs that I’m starting to see show up in the admin interface. This would make a great user test to see if new users can find where to add new plugins easier than the way it currently is set-up now.
Scott Kingsley Clark 1:27 pm on March 22, 2013

I’d like to see tabs used here, not for just using tabs, but in hopes that the theme search UIUI UI is an acronym for User Interface - the layout of the page the user interacts with. Think ‘how are they doing that’ and less about what they are doing. may eventually be used for plugins too so you could filterFilter Filters are one of the two types of Hooks https://codex.wordpress.org/Plugin_API/Hooks. They provide a way for functions to modify data of other functions. They are the counterpart to Actions. Unlike Actions, filters are meant to work in an isolated manner, and should never have side effects such as affecting global variables and output. by categoryCategory The 'category' taxonomy lets you group posts / content together that share a common bond. Categories are pre-defined and broad ranging. (see Franz’ comment above) and other criteria (maybe).

In my opinion, it would make the plugins page and add 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 a little more consistent with the themes and add/search theme pages.
Tevya 2:32 pm on March 22, 2013

Plugins should look like Themes or Themes should look like Plugins. As far as I’m concerned, either is fine, just make it consistent. I’ve long wondered why they’re so different. Consistency please.
- Tevya 2:44 pm on March 22, 2013
  
  On 2nd thought: I’m not a big fan of the “tabs” on the Themes page. In MP6 they don’t really look like tabs anyway. Why not make it more like every other page in the WP admin and remove the “Manage Themes” tab entirely, and turn “Install Themes” into a small “Add New” button like on Plugins, and Posts, and Pages, etc???? That would be the most consistent.
- Chip Bennett 9:34 pm on March 22, 2013
  
  +1 for consistency between Themes and Plugins, whichever UIUI UI is an acronym for User Interface - the layout of the page the user interacts with. Think ‘how are they doing that’ and less about what they are doing. is ultimately chosen.
Ipstenu (Mika Epstein) 3:07 pm on March 22, 2013

Tabs, or buttons, since right now the links are small and I’ve had to send that screenshot of ‘This’ circled enough times this month 😉
Helen Hou-Sandi 3:14 pm on March 22, 2013

They should be consistent, yes.
sara cannon 6:09 pm on March 22, 2013

yes.. but if we go that direction, it would make sense to match the levels that they are in the menu hierarchy: possibly bringing themes top level (matching plugins) and letting appearance be about visual modifications / theme customizations & menus, widgets.
- tomdryan 10:42 pm on March 27, 2013
  
  Yes! Speaking as a relatively new WP user, there do need to be some simple changes to the menu hierarchy (and elsewhere) that can reduce the learning curve and increase the usability of WP. Is there a usability work group for WP or is that addressed in this group? In any case, I would love to contribute some usability feedback while all the fumbling around I did is still fresh in my head. 🙂
Mike Schinkel 12:15 am on March 23, 2013

I’d really like to be able to archive plugins, i.e. not delete them but ZIP and keep on the local system for later unarchive and (re-)activation. It would also be really great if we could group plugins and collapse the group so we don’t have to look at the long list of plugins. Finally a simple thing would be to have the list of activated plugins be the default rather than all plugins.
buzztone 2:21 am on March 23, 2013

I’d like to put in a cheer for Tabs on the Plugins Page. Used well they could significantly improve the usability of the interface.

Some of the better plugins, like Yoast WordPress SEO, are now using tabs to significantly improve the ease of use of their plugins. Ease of use of the Plugins page could similarly be improved by adding some useful Tabs, starting with Manage Plugins / Install Plugins.
Matt Thomas 5:34 am on March 29, 2013

My +1 would go to making Themes work like other sections — where there’s an “Add Theme” button-like link next to the main themes headerHeader The header of your site is typically the first thing people will experience. The masthead or header art located across the top of your page is part of the look and feel of your website. It can influence a visitor’s opinion about your content and you/ your organization’s brand. It may also look different on different screen sizes. (this would re-use the same pattern as Posts, Pages, etc. too, not just Plugins). We struggled a little bit with what to do with this tabbed style in MP6, since it’s unique to the Themes pages (it appears on the About page too, but in a little different context).