UI/UX suggestions for Addon Installer

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kkremitzki
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Re: Soft UI/UX suggestions for Macro Addon Installer

Post by kkremitzki »

I plan on doing some more work on this project over the next few weeks, and I have a quick question for you all.

Right now, this tool's menu text is "Addon manager". Originally, when it was a macro, it was "Addons installer", but I unilaterally changed it when I added that code to FreeCAD's core since I don't believe the extra 's' is grammatically correct, and I was curious if anyone would say anything. In truth, also, "add-on" should be hyphenated.

Now, however, it doesn't really seem like anyone noticed, so I'd like to have a discussion on the topic. What should the tool say or be called? For comparison,
- Firefox just has a button labeled "Add-ons"
- LibreOffice has an "Extension Manager"
- QGIS has "Manage and install plugins"
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yorik
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Re: Soft UI/UX suggestions for Macro Addon Installer

Post by yorik »

This is a complicated matter... Even more that FreeCAD uses the concept internally too (the modules are in a sense also plug-ins). And the "add-ons" are in fact workbenches and macros, that can sometimes also be simply FreeCAD modules... Doh :)

I'm not sure we can find something that will definitely solve the question :D
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Re: Soft UI/UX suggestions for Macro Addon Installer

Post by DeepSOIC »

"Addon manager" sounds all right to me. It makes it more-or-less clear they are not part of freecad itself.

Addon (or plug-in) may be is a module, but a module is not necessarily an add-on. See, you can't remove Part from FreeCAD with add-on manager, and I think it is right. "Extension" means a different thing in FreeCAD already, so it's taken.
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Kunda1
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UI/UX suggestions for Addon Installer

Post by Kunda1 »

How about we re-use the QGIS .ui for the addon manager ?
https://github.com/qgis/QGIS/blob/maste ... gerbase.ui
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Kunda1
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Re: UI/UX suggestions for Addon Installer

Post by Kunda1 »

Maybe useful: updating check for external Workbenches https://forum.freecadweb.org/viewtopic.php?f=10&t=27621
easyw-fc wrote:ping
@easyw-fc is this methodology could be utilized in this possible next iteration of the addon manager (mentioned in my previous post) ?
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Re: UI/UX suggestions for Addon Installer

Post by easyw-fc »

Kunda1 wrote: Thu Mar 22, 2018 2:05 pm Maybe useful: updating check for external Workbenches https://forum.freecadweb.org/viewtopic.php?f=10&t=27621
easyw-fc wrote:ping
@easyw-fc is this methodology could be utilized in this possible next iteration of the addon manager (mentioned in my previous post) ?
what I do for my checking is:
1) having the commit number defined as a variable inside the WB
2) get the main GH web page of the WB when the WB is activated (if the checking is enabled)
3) extract from the web page the commits number and check if compares with the one coded inside the WB

This is the simpler method I found to check if the installed WB is up to date with the one at GH...
May be there are other simpler/better methods
:D
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Kunda1
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Re: UI/UX suggestions for Addon Installer

Post by Kunda1 »

Kunda1 wrote: Wed Mar 21, 2018 10:45 pm How about we re-use the QGIS .ui for the addon manager ?
https://github.com/qgis/QGIS/blob/maste ... gerbase.ui
Image
Anyone open to mentoring me attaching the FC backend code to this QGIS frontend template ?
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yorik
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Re: UI/UX suggestions for Addon Installer

Post by yorik »

I think most of the addon manager script code would need to be redone... Are you sure this is the best way? Personally I would find more efficient to extend the existing one to add the missing features you need from the QGis one.

Plus there are other points to solve first: How will you detect new workbenches? And invalid ones? How would the vote system work? You would need a server somewhere with some server-side code running on it, to register the votes. How will you make sure a person doesn't vote a hundred times? Also, what would be the use of a vote system?

There is also the problem that for people without python-git we currently don't have a system to detect if an update is available...
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Kunda1
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Re: UI/UX suggestions for Addon Installer

Post by Kunda1 »

yorik wrote: Mon Apr 02, 2018 5:02 pm I think most of the addon manager script code would need to be redone... Are you sure this is the best way? Personally I would find more efficient to extend the existing one to add the missing features you need from the QGis one.

Plus there are other points to solve first: How will you detect new workbenches? And invalid ones? How would the vote system work? You would need a server somewhere with some server-side code running on it, to register the votes. How will you make sure a person doesn't vote a hundred times? Also, what would be the use of a vote system?

There is also the problem that for people without python-git we currently don't have a system to detect if an update is available...
yorik wrote: Mon Apr 02, 2018 5:02 pm How would the vote system work? You would need a server somewhere with some server-side code running on it, to register the votes. How will you make sure a person doesn't vote a hundred times? Also, what would be the use of a vote system?.
I'd probably forego the voting system.
yorik wrote: Mon Apr 02, 2018 5:02 pm How will you detect new workbenches? And invalid ones?
I wouldn't add that functionality yet. I'd leave it de-activated till we figure that out.
yorik wrote: Mon Apr 02, 2018 5:02 pm I would find more efficient to extend the existing one to add the missing features you need from the QGis one.
Fair enough. I'm just not sure how to extend our current addon. Qt Designer isn't as intuitive as I would like it to be.
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easyw-fc
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Re: UI/UX suggestions for Addon Installer

Post by easyw-fc »

yorik wrote: Mon Apr 02, 2018 5:02 pm There is also the problem that for people without python-git we currently don't have a system to detect if an update is available...
what I do with my update checker for my WBs is using urllib2 or urllib (for py3) to fetch the GH page and get the commits number. Then I compare this value with the one written in the WB itself.
Both libs should be available in the default python installation.
The developer has only to align the internal saved commit nbr variable to the next commit number, before upate the WB.
More details here:
https://forum.freecadweb.org/viewtopic.php?f=10&t=27621
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