[wp-trac] [WordPress Trac] #21307: Remove Link Manager from core

WordPress Trac wp-trac at lists.automattic.com
Wed Jul 18 19:39:54 UTC 2012


#21307: Remove Link Manager from core
----------------------------+-----------------
 Reporter:  nacin           |      Owner:
     Type:  task (blessed)  |     Status:  new
 Priority:  normal          |  Milestone:  3.5
Component:  General         |    Version:
 Severity:  normal          |   Keywords:
----------------------------+-----------------
 The proposed 3.5 scope includes removing the Link Manager from core. This
 is not as straightforward as it sounds, and comes with a number of
 considerations. Here are two ways for us to "remove" it:

 '''Hide the menu.''' For new installs, stop inserting default links and
 hide the menu, only. (Also the default widget.) For old installs, remove
 default links if those are the only ones they have. Hide the menu if they
 have no links. In this situation, we could make it so the menu does remain
 accessible, which means they could go in, insert a link, and suddenly the
 feature would come back to life.

 Pros: Focuses on our main goal here, which is UI bloat.

 Cons: Ignores code bloat and required future maintenance of essentially
 dead code.

 '''Move everything to a plugin.''' For new installs, everything is gone.
 No more table, no more API. For old installs, on upgrade, install a
 compatibility plugin that contains the API, if they have any links. Remove
 the table on upgrade if they don't have any links beyond the default one.

 Pros: Handles both UI and code bloat in one big swing.

 Cons: Backwards compatibility nightmare. Functions are removed rather than
 deprecated. Even just truncating these functions and conditionally
 defining them could result in fatal errors from plugins expecting
 different return values. Sites not relying on the automatic upgrade could
 break.

 Clearly, we need some kind of middle-ground approach. We should probably
 do an accounting of all code (off the top of my head, it'd be
 bookmark.php, bookmark-template.php, link-add.php, link-edit.php, link-
 manager.php, edit-link-form.php, admin/includes/bookmark.php; code in the
 schema; code in the taxonomy API). Then, figure out what our goals are for
 3.5.

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Ticket URL: <http://core.trac.wordpress.org/ticket/21307>
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