Movalog Plugins Reloaded
Whenever there isn't an update for such a long time, you can be assured I'm working on something! This time round, it's a completely new Movalog Plugins Area and has several exciting features:
It addresses perhaps the number one complaint with my plugins, a lack of documentation! Well over the last two months or so, I've completely rewritten the documentation for every single plugin featuring much clearer installation instructions as well as detailing almost every area of the plugins complete with screenshots.
Downloading and accessing this documentation is presented in slightly a different way to the norm. You're now prompted to enter your name and email address and a link to the documentation emailed to you. These details will, of course, never be shared. I've taken this approach for one simple reason, to better track the usage of my plugins - in an attempt to identify which are the more popular ones and therefore where I should focus my energy.
Every plugin is compatible with Byrne Reese's Plugin Manager (currently in alpha). Plugin Manager - something I've been pining for ever since David Raynes wrote the first one - automates the process of installating a plugin (and keeping it up-to-date) and Movalog Plugins are fully compatible with it. Simply enter a plugin's URL into Plugin Manager and it will be downloaded and installed for you. Major props to Byrne for not only making Plugin Manager easy to use but easy to code for.
There are a few testimonials scattered across the site. I'd love to put some more up so if you use any of my plugins, I'd appreciate if you posted a comment (or dropped me a line, if you feel more comfortable with that) sharing your experiences.
Finally, the forums imploded. They desperately needed a facelift and upgrade and will hopefully be up soon. In the meantime, post to the Movable Type Support Forums which I check when I get a free moment.
So, what do you think?
20 Comments
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Jenna Pfister said:
on May 28, 2006 10:51 PM | Reply
It looks great, Arvind! Nice work...
Byrne Reese said:
on May 28, 2006 11:49 PM | Reply
You are such a rock star. The entire Movable Type developer community could learn something from you. The new plugins area is clear, and incredibly easy to use. The download interaction is brilliant - have the instructions emailed to you! It reduces clutter, and it is a great way for you to capture the emails of your users. Brilliant.
Su said:
on May 29, 2006 5:19 AM | Reply
I'm sorry, but there are so many things wrong with this. Hiding(weakly) your documentation is not a solution for checking plugin usage. Frankly, I don't think there's anything that'd be terribly reliable for this, but more importantly, I don't see how this has any benefit to anybody over just tracking the download counts directly.
It's unclear to me how seeing people bounce around the doc pages can in any way be extrapolated to "X plugin is popular," rather than say, "X plugin's documentation is confusing and being constantly referred to." This just feels like throwing speed bumps in front of your users.
Tami said:
on May 29, 2006 7:47 AM | Reply
I don't mind the emailed documentation link thing. You give all these wonderful plugins away for free (only requesting donation). You are more than welcome to my name and email address in return (in addition to a donation)!
I know you have it sort of documented in your blog, but an easy way to check what's new with the latest update to a plugin from the official emailed documentation page would be nice.
I love the clean layout of the plugins (very easy on the eyes) and the navigation is really easy and clear also.
Great job as usual!
Jesse Gardner said:
on May 29, 2006 8:28 AM | Reply
Looking great, Arvind. Very clean, very easy to navigate.
Don't let Su dog you about collecting emails. You're putting out far more into the community than he has; you've earned your right to ask for a little feedback (i.e. postcardware). When Su sets up his plugin site with tons of free downloads for Movable Type, he can do it the right way and not ask for email addresses.
Arvind Satyanarayan said:
on May 29, 2006 9:11 AM | Reply
Hi guys, thanks for all the feedback and encouragement. It's appreciated.
@Tami: I completely forgot about including changelogs on the pages. It struck me whilst launching but then I had to fix some other bugs and I forgot. I'll add them asap, thanks!
@Su: Well we'll see how it works. So far it seems to be doing ok with about 80 users having downloaded a plugin.
You're quite right though, the documetation is weakly hidden and done so purposely - if users are very uncomfortable sharing their email address with me, they can just play around with the URL to get to the documentation. However, personally, I don't think sharing email addresses for free software is too much to ask.
Incidentially, I find it interesting that although I previewed this to ProNet several weeks ago, you chose to point out the flaws once it launched :)
Su said:
on May 29, 2006 1:51 PM | Reply
However many e-mail addresses you get, real or not, is actually irrelevant; some people will give them, some won't. Anybody who requires registration for access to content has presumably resigned themselves to that fact. I still fail to see benefit to anyone involved, hence the speed bump objection, which is my actual point. But if you've figured out a way to make traffic stats more useful than download stats, great. I have serious doubts either is particularly meaningful, though I'd side with the latter.
As far as the preview, I have absolutely no recollection of this. When was it? I can't immediately find any reference in the local archive I keep. I have to admit I'm not sure what you're getting at here, as I think it's been pretty well established I have no trouble airing my objections on the list, so at worst, I forgot to say something. If you take my comments as maliciousness, that's unfortunate. And incorrect.
Arvind Satyanarayan said:
on May 29, 2006 2:08 PM | Reply
That's really odd. I can see the message in my sent box but I can't find it in the archives either. God knows what happened.
salguod said:
on May 30, 2006 9:03 AM | Reply
Arvind - I'm looking forward to seeing the new documentation. Does that mean I'll need to request a link to the down load section, even though the plugins I use haven't changed?
While I have no objection to giving you my email address, it is a little inconvenient to have to keep these emails so I have the link to the docs page. Unless I misunderstand how this works.
Arvind Satyanarayan said:
on May 30, 2006 9:30 AM | Reply
Hi Salgoud, yes you'll need to first sign up to get the link to the documentation.
The plugins have all been updated such that the link to documentation (on the plugins listing) points directly to the new documentation rather than the splash page. So if you redownload the plugins you use - simply upload the pl files in each - you needn't keep the emails.
demonsurfer said:
on Jun 2, 2006 6:33 AM | Reply
Very nice - clean and intuitive - everything it should be. Excellent. I'll be testdriving a few of these once MT3.3 is out - not long now!
demonsurfer said:
on Jun 2, 2006 6:45 AM | Reply
hmm.. strike and underline don't appear to be working, at least not on preview.. guess you need to enable them on mt-config.cgi if they don't show on post.
Jenna Pfister said:
on Jun 5, 2006 1:43 AM | Reply
The download link for the plugins doesn't seem to work. I was hoping to get a backup copy of Protect and CustomFields.
Warning: main(/home/movalog/www/cgi-bin/mt/php/lib/MTUtil.php): failed to open stream: No such file or directory in /home/movalog/public_html/plugins/download.php on line 2
Fatal error: main(): Failed opening required '/home/movalog/www/cgi-bin/mt/php/lib/MTUtil.php' (includepath='.:/usr/lib/php:/usr/local/lib/php') in /home/movalog/publichtml/plugins/download.php on line 2
Arvind Satyanarayan said:
on Jun 5, 2006 7:48 AM | Reply
Hi Jenna that should be fixed now. I'd moved around my MT installations whilst upgrading to 3.3, forgot to change those paths.
Richard Evans Lee said:
on Jun 11, 2006 1:23 AM | Reply
Having finally moved a couple of installations up to 3.2 I thought I'd see which plugins I might wish to use.
Often my choices are governed by what needs to be done to install a plugin. No way to do that with yours with out this email thing.
Having bought three MT licenses and given donations for various things I'm not averse to rewarding someone who has helped me. But requiring me to fill out a form so that I can decide if I might want to use something simply makes me decide to skip bothering.
Don't get me wrong: you certainly should do what you believe to be wisest. But the effect may not be what you hope and intend.
Jay said:
on Jun 21, 2006 7:44 AM | Reply
It seems like these aren't working again. I was trying to download the inline editor plugin and I get this error message: Parse error: syntax error, unexpected '}' in /home/movalog/public_html/plugins/mailer.php on line 69
This is also the error message I get when trying to get the ajax plugin.
:( Am I looking in the wrong place?
Judi Sohn said:
on Jun 28, 2006 5:19 PM | Reply
I was running Enhanced Entry Editing under MT 3.2 without a problem. Now I've moved to MT 3.3 (beta 3) and as advised, disabled the BigPAPI plug-in. Of course, now WYSIWYG editing doesn't work.
Can you explain how to get your BigPAPI-based plug-ins working under MT 3.3? I seem to be missing something.
Gurunandan said:
on Jul 4, 2006 10:07 PM | Reply
Hi Arvind,
Thanks for a great set of Plugins. Any plans on the port to MT3.3? I am quite keen to upgrade and I was wondering when you might be able to release the plugins to work with 3.3
Thanks once again for the great work
demonsurfer said:
on Jul 4, 2006 10:40 PM | Reply
Probably waiting for the MT3.3 public release in case there are any more changes - I've found that MajorDojo's PhotoGallery plugin/template set doesn't work with MT3.3b-FRC, although it was working with an earlier 3.3beta (installs ok but cant save new gallery entries in FRC).
demonsurfer said:
on Jul 4, 2006 10:41 PM | Reply
Probably waiting for the MT3.3 public release in case there are any more changes - I've found that MajorDojo's PhotoGallery plugin/template set doesn't work with MT3.3b-FRC, although it was working with an earlier 3.3beta (installs ok but cant save new gallery entries in FRC).