[wp-hackers] 2.3 Features

[Doug Stewart]

On 5/17/07, Eduardo Gutierrez de Oliveira <eduo at mac.com> wrote:
> On May 18, 2007, at 1:00 AM, jason switzer wrote:
>
> > On 5/16/07, Doug Stewart <zamoose at gmail.com> wrote:
> >>
> >> Quick spitballing on the updating of plugins - a single link at the
> >> bottom/top of the plugins page that hits the plugin repo, creates a
> >> zipfile containing all relevant plugin files and prompting the
> >> user to
> >> download it, allowing them to upload/update at their leisure.
> >
> > I'm not really trying to "spitball it" because I think it would
> > definately
> > be a step in the right direction. I would personally love to see
> > plugins and
> > themes be brain-dead simple to upgrade or install (useful if you
> > make no
> > changes to them). I would prefer it not simply notify me of the
> > update but
> > be able to perform the update as well (perhaps with an "Update Plugin"
> > button, so I can click on that button at my leisure) when it
> > detects one is
> > available. It's not how I would implement said feature, but it
> > would still
> > improve the situation.
>
> I actually agree here. I really don't need a centralised way to
> upgrade plug-ins, I just need them to be able to update without me
> having to go through the check,download,disable,unzip,place,enable.
>
> The normal approach people think here is having a central repository
> and have that be hit. This, to me, is just one of the possible ways.
>
> Another way would be to provide the infrastructure for plugins to
> register themselves to update. the plug-in would just register in the
> updater engine with a list of places to check for new versions. The
> updater engine would then periodically check all the plug-ins sites
> (similar to appcasts for Sparkle in Mac OS X) and let the user know
> of updates.
>
> The update notice sent after the ping would specify the new version,
> changes and other comments, and would internally specify what needs
> to be done and where.
>
> This would take off the burden of a repository, which I think is
> great for human browsing but I just don't see for programatic access.
> I'm not sure if this made any sense, I know I have it clearer in my
> mind, but it's 1am :)

The problem with automatically updating, and not just notifying, is
that it is almost GUARANTEED to not work on a large number of sites,
particularly ones using shared hosting.

What do you do when a host has fsockopen disabled?  What if cURL is
further disabled? What about PHP's FTP capabilities?  What about
permissions?  How do you handle that?

Auto-updating is a GREAT feature, when it works.  My experience is
that it isn't likely to actually work in a good number of situations.


-- 
-Doug

http://literalbarrage.org/blog/