WordPress finally got around to hosting a plugin directory at wordpress.org — http://www.wordpress.org/extend/plugins
And since they asked for feedback… It looks just as nice as the rest of the site, but the UI could use some help. Quite a bit, from my brief experience with it.
- The front page, of the list shows Popular/New/Recent plugins. What’s the difference between New and Recent? It’s not explained. What do any of them do. Only the “Featured Plugin” is described. I could click the link to follow each, but what a pain!
- Title/link-Hover bubble descriptions would be nice. It’s not that much extra code/data to include in the page. The number of items on the lists is limited, after all.
- When I submitted details to add my two plugins, I got bupkis.
- No confirmation page.
- No email.
- No… anything.
- Just the same page again, but now missing the information I’d just typed and submitted. At the very least I’d like a “Thanks, don’t call us… we’ll call you.” acknowledgement that my information actually went somewhere.
- There’s a useful little Readme Validator but what an ugly, plain page! Furthermore, if you need to make repeated revisions to your readme to get it looking spiffy, you have to:
- Paste your text,
- Submit,
- Examine the output,
- Hit the back button,
- Alter your text,
- Repeat ad nauseum.
- It would be so much better if the Results page included my original text in a box at the bottom I could just alter and re-submit, to keep me on one page
Please, WP… It’s such a promising offering. It’s great progress, too. Just fix it a little. 🙂