[Qgis-developer] How to deal with plugins which are not useful for users (e.g. Hello world)

[Alessandro Pasotti]

2013/12/30 Anita Graser <anitagraser at gmx.at>

> Hi Alessandro,
>
> Thanks for chiming in.
>
> Am 30.12.2013, 09:44 Uhr, schrieb Alessandro Pasotti <apasotti at gmail.com>:
>
>  But in that particular case (HelloWorld), I feel that people are using it
>> as a template to explore/start the development of their plugins. It was
>> downloaded more than 4000 times and people did warn me in the past when
>> it was broken/uncompatible with newer QGIS version. In other words, even if
>> it does just nothing (it's a test plugin) I'm sure it has been useful to
>> other users.
>>
>
> I'm sure the plugin is useful for plugin developers. For users though,
> it's just confusing to have a plugin offered which doesn't do anything.



Hi Anita,

well, the plugin in fact does something even if not very useful: it opens a
small window with a button.

Did you have any real feedback from users being confused from the
HelloWorld plugin? After all, it clearly advertises itself as an example
do-nothing plugin.

Can you explain me why do you put plugin developers in a different category
than users? I tend to see plugin authors as (power) users.
 If I were a new QGIS user, I would like to have starting point to develop
plugins, of course we have the coockbook and the builder plus plenty of
blog articles, but as a programmer, what I would search is exactly that:
the simplest possible plugin to start tampering with.

But I definitely agree that HelloWorld should not have a dual purpose
(testing the plugin repository and provide a barebone example for wannabe
plugin authors), so here's my proposal: unpublish HelloWorld and create a
new Example plugin with the purpose of providing a simple starting point
for new plugin authors.


-- 
Alessandro Pasotti
w3:   www.itopen.it
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