[Qgis-developer] Proposal: Having all Processing providers as independent components

[Victor Olaya]

Hi all


Before writing a QEP, I would like to discuss quickly here one idea
about Processing, that I think could be interesting and feasible for
3.0

Currently, Processing has some “core” providers (those that are part
of the Processing code itself and are installed with QGIS), ranging
from basic ones such as GDAL or the provider with native QGIS
algorithms, to more uncommon ones, such as LiDAR tools or TauDEM.

Apart from that, more algorithms can be added to the Processing
toolbox, via separate plugins.

To homogenize that and improve user experience, it could be good to
have all those providers as separate plugins, so a bare-bones
installation of Processing would have maybe just the native algorithms
(or native + GDAL), and all remaining ones would be installed by the
users. Installation can be done directly using the plugin manager, or
maybe from Processing itself, if all Processing-based plugins are
conveniently tagged (which is a good idea in any case).

This would have some advantages. Providers would be better organized,
and they could be updated and managed independently. In the future, we
might even think about packaging both the provider itself and the
backend app, which would be a much better user experience. Also, for
beginners it would be easier and less intimidating to have a simpler
toolbox (and with just the algorithms that are more robust and work
always out of the box), and then extend it as needed.

So, in short, I would like to discuss the idea of taking out most of
the providers and have them outside of the core code, so they can be
installed as complements that enhance Processing, instead of some of
them being core and some of them not.

Let me know what you think

Thanks!