[wp-hackers] Plugins -- new header fields: max-compatible and min-compatible

[Stephen Rider]

On Apr 2, 2008, at 3:16 PM, Christian Holtje wrote:
> On Apr 2, 2008, at 4:03 PM, Peter Westwood wrote:
>>>
>>> On Mar 31, 2008, at 8:39 PM, Stephen Rider wrote:
>>>> Here's a thought.  It might be useful to allow for new plugin  
>>>> header fields: "max-compatible" and "min-compatible".  It would  
>>>> allow plugin developers to specify WP versions that the plugin is  
>>>> known to work with.
>>>
>>> What significant benefit do these have over the existing fields in  
>>> the readme.txt standard.
>>
>> http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/about/readme.txt
>> Requires at least: 2.0.2
>> Tested up to: 2.1
>
> What we're asking for is notification in admin interface, so that  
> the user knows.  In fact, I like Requires at least and Tested up to.  
> Better names than min and max.
>
> "Requires at least" should be a hard-coded limit.  It just won't  
> activate if WP is less than that version.
> "Tested up to" should indicate it's untested visually somehow yet  
> still run.

Christian gave two good reasons;

1) When upgrading I don't have to slog through source files looking  
for what's going to work and what's not.

2) With hard limits, WordPress can programatically _not_ activate any  
plugins that are known not to work with that version.  The Drop Down  
Admin Menu plugin is a good example.  There is a version that flatly  
**will not work** in WordPress 2.5.  if we had these limits  
implemented, WordPress could know not to activate.  Same with the  
later version that _only_ works with 2.5

Yes, plugin authors can put in logic that tests for versions, but this  
would be a standard one-line header.  It could alert the user directly  
that there is (or may be) an issue.

 From another angle: What significant benefit do one-click plugin  
updates have over uploading files via FTP?  Simple:  less screwing  
around with source files.

>>> "Requires at least" should be a hard-coded limit.  It just won't  
>>> activate if WP is less than that version.
>>> "Tested up to" should indicate it's untested visually somehow yet  
>>> still run.


You're probably right on that one.  The "tested up to" should also  
probably only flag it if it's a significant decimal -- e.g if it's  
tested on v2.3, it should _not_ flag 2.3.3 as untested, but 2.5 yes.

Stephen

-- 
Stephen Rider
<http://striderweb.com/>