better plugin activation/deactivation mechanism

[Liviu Andronic]

Dear Tom
I'm often confronted with the following tedious manipulation when
"editing" plugins:
- hit Add button
- hit Select button
- identify and select the plugin using some cryptic file name
- hit Open

Now this may be acceptable when needing to add one or two missing
plugins. But this is an overkill when needing to add all (or most
plug-ins).

I've been hit more than once with a bug where all the plug-ins
disappear from the 'Edit plugins' window. In these cases I usually
don't bother about re-enabling all the necessary plugins---as
explained above, it's tedious---so I get on with my business with a
half-functional emel. (For example F5 will complain with "Command
'file.cpbar_with_time' - No such file or directory".)

I would suggest adding a mechanism that allow the user to enable all
plugins in one go. For example, there could be a 'Select All' button
that asks the user for a dir and then enables all plug-ins that
haven't already been enabled. Then the user could easily reorganize or
customize the list to her wishes. Or emel could always load all teh
plugins in the default dir in the GUI list, but have 'Loaded' and
'Menu' unchecked for all the entries that have been automatically
added. This way the user only needs to check those plugins that she
needs, avoiding the cumbersome process above.

Regards
Liviu

[t***@onepost.net]

On Fri, 13 Jul 2012 15:34:21 +0200

Post by Liviu Andronic
I'm often confronted with the following tedious manipulation when
- hit Add button
- hit Select button
- identify and select the plugin using some cryptic file name
- hit Open
Now this may be acceptable when needing to add one or two missing
plugins. But this is an overkill when needing to add all (or most
plug-ins).
I've been hit more than once with a bug where all the plug-ins
disappear from the 'Edit plugins' window. In these cases I usually
don't bother about re-enabling all the necessary plugins---as
explained above, it's tedious---so I get on with my business with a
half-functional emel. (For example F5 will complain with "Command
'file.cpbar_with_time' - No such file or directory".)
I would suggest adding a mechanism that allow the user to enable all
plugins in one go. For example, there could be a 'Select All' button
that asks the user for a dir and then enables all plug-ins that
haven't already been enabled. Then the user could easily reorganize or
customize the list to her wishes. Or emel could always load all teh
plugins in the default dir in the GUI list, but have 'Loaded' and
'Menu' unchecked for all the entries that have been automatically
added. This way the user only needs to check those plugins that she
needs, avoiding the cumbersome process above.

Agreed, the current process for adding plugins originated in the dark-ages, and is un-necessarily clumsy.

The easiest alternative would simply be to set the file-selector to 'multi-select' mode. You could then change as much or as little as you want.

I don't favour loading all plugins by default. If that were to be done, might as well just put the plugin code directly into the core.

Regards
Tom

[Liviu Andronic]

Post by t***@onepost.net
Agreed, the current process for adding plugins originated in the dark-ages, and is un-necessarily clumsy.
The easiest alternative would simply be to set the file-selector to 'multi-select' mode. You could then change as much or as little as you want.

What about the 'Add' operation in this case? Would the user need to
hit 'Add' only one time, or multiple?

Post by t***@onepost.net
I don't favour loading all plugins by default. If that were to be done, might as well just put the plugin code directly into the core.

When suggesting 'load', I merely thought about populating the list.
But if populating the list requires indeed loading all the plugins,
then I understand that this could be a performance issue.

Thanks
Liviu

[t***@onepost.net]

On Sun, 15 Jul 2012 06:07:43 +0000
Liviu Andronic <***@gmail.com> wrote:

I've put into svn some changes to allow multiple-selection of plugin files. Note - I haven't yet had time to test the changes much.

Post by Liviu Andronic

Post by t***@onepost.net
The easiest alternative would simply be to set the file-selector to 'multi-select' mode. You could then change as much or as little as you want.

What about the 'Add' operation in this case? Would the user need to
hit 'Add' only one time, or multiple?

You no longer need to add/insert a blank line, into which the data for a single plugin would be placed.

Instead, just open the file-selector dialog, select as many plugin-files as you want, click 'open'. The selected file(s) will all be loaded, and shown in the config dialog, either after the cursor position or at the end if there's no cursor. Re-loading of plugins already in there is prevented.

Regards
Tom

[Liviu Andronic]

Post by t***@onepost.net
You no longer need to add/insert a blank line, into which the data for a single plugin would be placed.
Instead, just open the file-selector dialog, select as many plugin-files as you want, click 'open'. The selected file(s) will all be loaded, and shown in the config dialog, either after the cursor position or at the end if there's no cursor. Re-loading of plugins already in there is prevented.

I tried r2570 and it looks promising. Several issues I've noticed. I
had 4 plugins already loaded. Hit Select button, select all items in
the chooser via ctrl+a then hit open. As a result I get a crash. See
attached.

Regards
Liviu

[t***@onepost.net]

On Wed, 18 Jul 2012 18:58:12 +0200

Post by Liviu Andronic

Post by t***@onepost.net
You no longer need to add/insert a blank line, into which the data for a single plugin would be placed.
Instead, just open the file-selector dialog, select as many plugin-files as you want, click 'open'. The selected file(s) will all be loaded, and shown in the config dialog, either after the cursor position or at the end if there's no cursor. Re-loading of plugins already in there is prevented.

I tried r2570 and it looks promising. Several issues I've noticed. I
had 4 plugins already loaded. Hit Select button, select all items in
the chooser via ctrl+a then hit open. As a result I get a crash. See
attached.

Selecting 'all' will include the 'upgrade' plugin, which should never be installed as such. This caused a crash here. Svn code now blocks that, and I've selected and added 'all' successfully.

Once, I had a crash when ending a session, after installing all the plugins, then abandoning the updated configuration. Haven't yet managed to repeat it, to check.

However ... I suspect that the curious behaviour reported by Liviu when attempting to unpack a zip file is related to plugin installation. After a config reset, and fresh install of the unpack plugin, I got a different reason for not-able-to-proceed, but then after ending the session, then starting a new one, the unpack works as expected. And same from then onwards. So this might be a well-hidden problem.

If anyone can confirm this sort of thing, please post a message, to let us know.

Regards
Tom