[QGIS-Developer] How are Featured Plugins Chosen?

[C Hamilton]

Here are my suggestions taking into account that this is highly subjective
and different users are going to have their favorite plugins. Featured
plugins should be bug free and have good documentation/tutorials on how to
use them. Featured plugins should fall into one of several categories.

1. Semi-permanent plugins that are used by a broad user community. (I wish
there were a way to know what plugins people actually use - not just
download.) The ones on the current list that I would place in this category
are:
    a. qgis2web
    b. QuickMapServices - It may be that is becoming less important because
of the XYZ Tile Server
    c. Quick Finder
    d. Time Manager - Perhaps this should be in category 2 although I use
it.

2. Plugins that have a high value to a part of the user community and I
think they should be featured but not all the time. The ones currently in
the list that I would place in this category are:
    a. LRS - Useful to a small set of users
    b. Qgis2threejs - Really cool visualization, but once again I think it
is a smaller set of users
    c. ScriptRunner - Useful for programmers.
    d. Plugin Builder - Useful for beginning plugin developers.

3. Plugins that are new that have some unique capability or have been
evaluated to have a big impact.

The following plugins that are on the Featured plugin list I would suggest
removing or perhaps occasionally rotating them through. I am not suggesting
that they are not important. I'm sure that those who developed them use
them, but I think they have a smaller user community so perhaps others
should be highlighted. These include:
    a. Layer Board
    b. QConsolidate - Note that its plugin home page link is broken.
    c. lizmap
    d. Item Browser
    e. GeoCoding - I like Quick Finder better

The following plugins could be candidates for occasional inclusion as least
on a rotating bases.
    a. Copy Canvas to Clipboard - This is a small set of people but useful
if you want a snapshot of the canvas.
    b. Data Plotly - QGIS 3 plugin so perhaps it should not be included
until QGIS 3 becomes more mainstream, but it has great potential.
    c. Lat Lon Tools - One of my most used plugins, but I am kind of biased.
    d. Profile tool - I have used this on a number of occasions, but it
needs better documentation
    e. Split Features On Steroids - This is a newer plugin that I have
found to be quite useful.
    f. QGIS Resource Sharing - Should at least be featured sometime.
    g. pgRoutingLayer - Important for those doing map routing.
    h. Shape Tools - Another one I use, but once again I am very biased.
    i. Other analysis plugins, but I am not sure which ones should be
placed on this list. 'Hotspot Analysis' could be cool if it ever gets out
of the experimental stage.

Quite frankly I am not sure how to judge candidates for inclusion because I
am not looking at all of them and my interests and needs are going to be
different from the next user, but it would be nice to feature different
plugins that are unique to a set of the user community or different
categories of plugins, why they are useful, and to have a nice write up
about them.

Best wishes,

Calvin

On Wed, Jan 31, 2018 at 4:28 AM, Paolo Cavallini <cavallini at faunalia.it>
wrote:

> Hi all,
> thanks for this question. I confirm that the choice is subjective, done
> by the many people included in the staff of plugin management. As
> pointed out, this has been neglected in recent times. I'd welcome any
> suggestion on plugins to include in or remove from the list.
> One related issue is how to give more emphasis on user ratings: this
> could be a useful guide for others, but has been underutilized, and not
> prominently exposed. Ideas and contributions on this also welcomed.
> All the best.
>
>
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