Plugin Manager

[imilne]

When he released the Slate skin, Hairy also made a comment about how isolated a lot of the development for NPVR is. He does have a point.

I don't really know how we go about being more of a "community" when it comes to development - more shared plugins perhaps? (scb147 and I are working on one together; it's a start) - but one thing I did think of is perhaps it would be nice to have some sort of plugin manager, bringing all the plugins, skins, etc together in a single integrated tool, where the user could just tick boxes to say which ones they wanted, and it would pull them down from the web and install everything automatically.

Doing this would probably need some agreements between all the developers about the best way to manage/handle files, installs etc. Again, it might encourage a bit more interaction between everybody.

Thoughts?

[McBainUK]

This has been discussed before. IMO to be truly effective it needs to be driven by nPVR itself and sub. A plugin plugin manager just sounds wrong.

Hairy also made a comment about how isolated a lot of the development for NPVR is. He does have a point.

I've found that most skins and plugins are created by a small team behind the scenes, including developers, artists and testers. Being developed behind the scenes is probably indicative of the closed source nature of nPVR and most plugin development. Although I do plan to publish all nPVR plugins on Google Code or similar when I have time.

[imilne]

This has been discussed before. IMO to be truly effective it needs to be driven by nPVR itself and sub. A plugin plugin manager just sounds wrong.

I agree that it would have to be more closely tied to nPVR than a normal plugin, but that doesn't necessarily mean it needs to be developed by sub (he has enough on his plate as it is ). The Slate skin is a perfect example of showing that he's amenable to including externally developed components with the core distributable.

Anyway, it was just an idea; I have no intention of currently working on anything like this. I just thought it would make for a nicer end-user experience if nothing else.

What was the result of the previous discussions btw? I'm guessing "not worth it" by your response

[sub]

There was some work put into NPVR downloading plugin lists, with descriptions and screenshots from gbpvr.com, and allowing the user to select to have them downloaded/installed automatically. Martin said he wouldnt use it for his plugins, and I had enough other stuff to get on with so I spent my energy elsewhere instead.

I'd still be happy to add something like this in future if the developers are happy to use it. I dont want to waste my time on something that people wont use.

[mvallevand]

Not correct I just wanted my dll's to be installed by Windows standards to the Program directory.

[sub]

Not correct I just wanted my dll's to be installed by Windows standards to the Program directory.

The application runs as a regular user and wouldnt be able to write files in the Program Files directory.

[mvallevand]

Most of the programs I use regularly that I allow automatic Updates, Firefox, Adobe and Java deal with this trivial issue well. I don't want to be blamed for this decision so I will make it easier for everyone and stop writing plugins.

Martin

[InVermont]

Most of the programs I use regularly that I allow automatic Updates, Firefox...Martin

Firefox stores its extensions in the user\appdata\[insanely long path] folder. Which is why you get UAC pops when you upgrade firefox itself, but not when you upgrade an extension.
On the Mac at least, Adobe products also store most extensions in the user folders.

[mvallevand]

It's no longer my concern. Hopefully this thread can get back on topic now.

Martin

[Ommina]

Bad day, Martin?

For my part - would I use a plugin manager? Probably not. One of them has three .exe files that really need to be in /PF, in addition to a start menu entry. The second might work for a subset of users. But halfway doesn't seem worth the effort.

I love the idea, from a user's perspective. It would be great for a user to be able to say "gimme this one!" and have it happen. But as I look at the install script for my current gbpvr plugin, I am not convinced it would be a good use of sub's time.