New Users can't find added Add-ons

Ideas
1

There was just a thread in the Maillist related to a common problem for new users.

They are confused by the add-ons installation process and then accessing new features. This is something for which I’ve fielded questions from at least a dozen different new users.

They might be confused by the Do not ask about previously notified addons option. Or they they expected the new install to be less transparent… expecting to be asked if they want to try the new feature now.

There are several things that might flatten or eliminate this learning curve:

In the dialog that says that there are no new add-ons, add buttons to show ‘previously notified’ and another to show ‘previously installed’ add-ons. (The 1st button toggles the ‘Do not ask about previously notified addons’ and rechecks. The second invokes the Plugin Manager. It would be more edifying if there were ‘counts’ displayed of the ‘previously notified’ & ‘installed’ add-ons.)

Or have a shortcut/hyperlinked list of unexplored add-ons. The hotlinks could either; open the wiki page associated with the add-on (since there isn’t an automated & structured collection of help_url for each add-on, a workaround might be to link to the add-on list that is manually curated); or, pop a modeless & always-on-top-Gramps-layer ‘Directions’ floater window with the GUI steps to access that type of add-on.

(Drilling down to Gramplets, Quick views, databases backends, map services & Rules are particularly confusing the first time a user encounters them. Accessing any new Reports, Tools, file formats & view modes is more intuitive.)

This feature for Directions & shortcut to the wiki page should also be linked to the Plugin Manager ‘info’ for installed add-ons.

2

What if there was an additional “Check for…” button.

The current button usually checks for New or Updated but excludes those addons that were not installed.

The new button could be “Available Uninstalled Addons”. In essence, it would do the New and Update search as if the exclude check box was unchecked or, “Show me the addons I previously did not want”.

3

I think that it is key to offer users options AT THE SAME TIME Gramps tells them that there is little or nothing available.

It eliminates a dead end instead of introducing the chaos of more branches.

The add-ons are in a huge & thriving ecosystem. This results window makes it look terminally anemic.

4

Update. The new user had changed the URL for checking updates without understanding the consequences.

Since there is no ‘Reset’, he was stuck in ‘Hotel California’

5

5.2 has a new Addon Manager with a reset for the addon list location

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