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It's been generally established that Craft SE is a perfect place to talk about plugins and plugin development. It seems only reasonable that in the near future, people will be posting questions regarding specific plugins.

What protocol(s) make the most sense when referencing a specific plugin?

One point that was discussed in another thread was to have a standard tagging system for referencing a specific plugin. This seems like a great idea. As discussed in that other thread, the SE tagging system will "flatten" your tags (ie: lowercase with no spaces), so here's what was suggested:

plugin-pluginhandle

So for example, the Pixel & Tonic "Contact Form" plugin would be tagged as

Does that sound like a good idea to the community? Are there any other protocols we should implement or be aware of?

2 Answers 2

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Plugin-specific tags has worked pretty well over in the EESE site. It’s nice from an plugin dev’s point of view because you can follow the tags that refer to your plugins, and even receive daily emails listing all of the new questions that were tagged with your plugins.

I’m not sure if the “plugin-” tag prefix is really necessary. No one’s doing that at EESE and it hasn’t been a problem yet, on a platform with a lot of very popular plugins. Still, I do like how clear it would be that the tag refers to a plugin, so I’m not against it either.

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    My thought behind adding the prefix was a better clarity. Some plugins use generic names, which might also be used as a tag for non-plugin questions: 'Import', 'Sitemap', 'Twitter', 'Dump', 'Links', 'Analytics'. -- That's why I'm against not using a prefix ;)
    – Victor
    Commented Jun 23, 2014 at 14:52
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    @VictorIn Good point! OK it’s got my vote :)
    – Brandon Kelly
    Commented Jun 24, 2014 at 7:23
  • @VictorIn P.S. - not sure how to get in touch with you, but I’m in Munich right now, and wondering if you are nearby, and would be available to meet up tonight? Please send me an email if so :) [email protected]
    – Brandon Kelly
    Commented Jun 24, 2014 at 7:25
  • Why would you want to use the plugin prefix to flag plugins with generic names? It should be best practice to give plugins non-generic names so that they can be identifiable without the need for the plugin- prefix. It is my opinion that if plugin developers are allowed to use tags for their plugins on stack exchange (which I'm not convinced is a good yet) the plugin- prefix should not be required or common practice. It shoul instead be used by those that could not come up with a unique name or thought that their plugin was so bomb that it deserves its own verb or proper noun.
    – Selvin Ortiz
    Commented Jun 29, 2014 at 2:32
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    @SelvinOrtiz I agree that it's lame for plugins to have super-basic names, and Brandon has even mentioned that the plugin store might not allow names that basic. But until then, we've got plugins called "Guzzle", "Dump", "Query", and "Editor"... How would you recommend tagging for those plugins to prevent any confusion?
    – Lindsey D
    Commented Jun 30, 2014 at 2:33
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    @SelvinOrtiz And to address your other concern: This may be a perfect place to ask questions about specific plugins. Not every plugin dev has setup a resource for people to contact the original author, and the community may be able to help each other solve those problems.
    – Lindsey D
    Commented Jun 30, 2014 at 2:35
  • @LindseyD To your first reply I say, do what Craft is already doing for some of their naming conventions. For example, if you have a plugin called Dump, all your components (if you only have one instance) can be prefixed with Dump(Plugin|Controller|Service|FieldType|Model|Record|*) but if you have multiple components of the same kind, you have to namespace them like Dump_Some(Controller|Model|*) so instead of a prefix, use a suffix for those generic names.
    – Selvin Ortiz
    Commented Jun 30, 2014 at 4:22
  • @LindseyD To your second reply, you used the words "may be" in there and I think that's what I was trying to say. It seems like a "perfect" idea but it might end up cluttering the crap out of useful questions and adding unnecessary noise but you are right. It might just work. In either case, it's up to every developer how they want to handle it and if this place is cutting down a ton of their own support, why not use it?!
    – Selvin Ortiz
    Commented Jun 30, 2014 at 4:28
  • @SelvinOrtiz Agreed, this will probably become the go-to spot for some developers to provide support, while others might ignore SE entirely (and still others falling somewhere in between). I hadn't envisioned it as a method for developers to tag their own plugins, instead I picture it as a good place for end-users to tag a plugin that they've installed, with the hopes of attracting the attention of that plugin's developer... or even just other community members who have dealt with that same plugin. Who knows how it will all evolve in the long run, I guess time will tell! :)
    – Lindsey D
    Commented Jun 30, 2014 at 5:12
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    @LindseyD I love the idea of this plugin tagging thing to be about the *end-user more than it would be about the developer, I'm with you there.
    – Selvin Ortiz
    Commented Jun 30, 2014 at 5:15
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    FWIW the “plugin-” prefix is really growing on me. Similar to the “status-” prefix in a couple of the official Meta tags. And yeah, whether the plugin dev wants to support people on SE is irrelevant. We had our own thing going for our EE add-ons (and were on top of it) but people asked questions about them on the EESE site anyway. So, plugin questions will get asked. Might as well make it really obvious when it happens.
    – Brandon Kelly
    Commented Jun 30, 2014 at 14:16
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This may just be a personal preference, but I would really like to see Craft SE remain a Q&A site for the CMS and not a support forum for plugins.

While I have heard EE add-on developers say how well the EESE site has worked for them, I find that it introduces a huge amount of noise. The EESE site seems have more questions about add-ons than the CMS itself and I have yet to find a way to filter out questions about add-ons.

Additionally, I believe that developers selling commercial plugins have a responsibility to offer a dedicated support channel and that piggybacking on the Craft SE site is not an adequate solution if used alone. Of course I see the benefit of taking advantage of SE's community aspect for supporting plugins but I also foresee many questions being asked about commercial plugins that only the developer will be able or willing to answer.

Finally, I'm very open to being convinced about plugin-specific tags if we can find a way to keep the site and the questions relevant and engaging.

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    That’s a good point. Regardless of how this plays out, offering dedicated support for plugins will always be an important aspect of commercial plugins. If someone just wants to release a thing they built with no interest in supporting it, though, I think this site could be the deciding factor of whether that will be realistic or not.
    – Brandon Kelly
    Commented Jun 30, 2014 at 22:07

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