[wp-hackers] What Should A Plugin Author Do To Make Plugins Extensible?

[Mike Schinkel]

On Sep 1, 2010, at 9:11 AM, Jeremy Clarke wrote:
> FWIW I think the 'other notes' section is probably adequate for listing API
> stuff in your plugin that you think should be used by developers. If you
> have good stuff there you can add a single line to the main plugin
> description saying 'see other notes section for constants, functions and
> hooks available in the plugin'.

Yes, clearly the 'other notes' section it's adequate.  Actually, having a single "About" section would have been adequate instead of having separate Description, Installation, Screenshots, FAQ, etc.  sections.  But if we only had a single "About" section how many plugin developers would it never occur to that they should add specifics to address Installation, Screenshots, FAQ, etc?  Looking at how many currently don't even add those, I'd say the percentage would be pretty high.

Finding a place to put API docs was not the point of the suggestion. The point was to encourage plugins developer to add hooks by giving them a suggested API section so it will occur to them that maybe it's something they should do.

Assuming getting more plugin to offer hooks is a useful goal and based on the percentage that offer currently hooks the current adequate solution is not, well, adequate.  

FWIW.

-Mike