WordPress has a huge community with a active user base contributing in the form of excellent plugins, however most of the plugins are scattered all over the internet making it more and more difficult for users to find them and also for plugin authors to send out updates whenever there are any.
However to solve the problem there is WordPress Extend, a place where plugin developers can add their plugins, making it easier for others to find them.
It would be really good if more and more developers started using WordPress Extend to distribute their plugins, I would like to discuss a few benefits developers get when they add their plugins to WordPress extend to make that decision easier.
Hint: If you are unaware of how to add your plugin to WordPress Extend, read our earlier tutorials.
- List Your Plugin at the WordPress.org Plugin Directory
- Adding Your Plugin to WP Extend Plugins Using a Mac
Here are the benefits of adding your plugin to WordPress Extend.
Free Hosting Space
You get free space to host your plugin files and also have the ability to host as many plugins you want, provided they are approved.
Free SVN Versioning System
If you have been a developer for sometime you might already know the benefits of using a versioning system, it not only helps you to have a history of changes, but also helps you to go back to previous versions or trunks with ease.
Publicity for Your Plugins
Once you add your plugins to the WordPress extend directory, it is discoverable by WordPress users, and with the ability to search plugins from the dashboard it gives your plugin much more better chance of being used and discovered.
In addition to that, whenever a user logs in to the admin dashboard they see new and popular plugins, giving them more exposure.
Ratings, Statistics & More
How Popular is your plugin, how many times have they been downloaded, do you want to keep track of these things easily without breaking your heads and using it to develop more and more useful plugins?
WordPress Extend provides users with all these features along with the ability to leave comments and feedback for your plugin.
Ability to Push Updates Directly to Users
WordPress has a excellent system to allow users to automatically upgrade plugins from the admin dashboard, however that feature is available to plugins that are listed in WordPress extend.
So the next time you add a new feature, fix a security problem or change something with your plugin, rest assured your plugin users will be intimated about it without you having to break your head and contacting each and every user, which is impossible by the way.
What Else?
Did I miss anything? Will you add your plugins to the WordPress Extend, now that you know the benefits? I would like to hear from you, the discussion is now open, so go ahead and let your thoughts be known.
P.S. One thing I would like to suggest WordPress plugin developers is to add a changelog to their plugins, read why adding changelog matters also check out the blog post Improving your plugin – Changelogs from the WordPress development blog.
It’s too bad WordPress Extend doesn’t offer anything for commercial GPL plugin authors.
Just like commercial themes, commercial GPL plugin authors don’t want to add their plugins to the repository because they can’t control the initial download.
They have added an area for commercial GPL themes but plugins don’t get any love from Matt and the WordPress.org brain trust.
I don’t want to hear the argument that “Commercial GPL plugins like Akismet and PollDaddy ARE in the repository… so commercial plugins are already there…” because those are only commercial in that the 3rd party service they interact with are commercial. They are plugins that interact with software as a service offerings.
I’m referring to commercial GPL plugins that don’t require some sort of subscription with a 3rd party service.
I agree with you 100% although not all plugins can be put there. I know of some paid plugins that you get emails or updates via email or via logging onto their forum and updating your details. Good example of this is Thesis. I can understand why, but it creates a problem whereby you sometimes don’t know there is an update.
It also forces one to use their version control system. This has numerous downsides, such as not being able to commit code when not connected to the internet, or if their servers are down (a not unknown occurrence). It also discourages the mixing of experimental programming and version control, since it forces one to gets one’s plugin to a point where it can be used by the general public, and then commit the code to the WP Extend SVN repository, thereby losing the entire change history that led to that point.
I tend to think that while we should applaud a system that makes things easier for users and developers alike, anything that removes power from the hands of the developer is probably best avoided. Something like GitHub is a lot better in this regard.
All of the reason you give, other than that it is on a WordPress.org domain and linked in to the WordPress backend are available elsewhere.
Such as Google Code, UnFuddle (which offers ticketing as well), Github and, well I’ll stop there because any developers reading this will have their favourite and recommend system.
Frankly, forcing me to use “another” SVN repository in order to get a plugin on WordPress extend is one step to far in my workflow.
I already use SVN or Git for source version control of all my code, but having to set up another working copy directory, export my code from my main development system and then transfer it into the SVN for WordPress is a royal pain, and means that if I did take the time, it would pretty much ensure the WordPress extend copy / version is always behind my other release locations.
What’s wrong with uploading a Zip file?
It’s also worth noting that this is, in fact, how the themes extend site works.
Hey, WordPress is awesome but the range of plugins seems to pretty extensive and can be a bit overwhelming for end users. Should the wordpress dev community model itself after the drupal community where there is agreement on supporting one module/plugin to do a specific task?
Thoughts?
Finbarr