Tere are a few closely associated interface elements that confuse Users. And they could be clarified by slight improvement of the Tooltips, choosing better icons, and reorganizing the toolbar.
The View → Configure.. and Edit → Preferences… are closely related. One is for local settings, the other is for global settings.
But it appears as though the similarity is accidental instead of intentional. By placing the Preferences toolbar icon adjacent to the to the Configure icon and having similar graphical elements, it reinforces that they are related but different.
So:
change the gramps-config.svg to gramps-gramplet.svg to connect the smaller ‘gear’ theme a different scope. And,
keep the Configure the active view tooltip for configure. But change the Open Preferences tooltip to a Configure global preferences
Another closely related (but different) interface are the Edit → Addon Manager… and Help → Plugin Manager.
It might be clearer if the Addon Manager was renamed/icon associated in the pattern suggesting a Store or Shopping tool – such as the Apple App Store, Google Play, Amazon Appstore, the various Linux distro repositories, Microsoft Store, Chrome Web Store, Edge Add-ons, Firefox Add-ons. vendor stores: Steam, Epic Games Store, GOG Galaxy.
With such a distinction, the growing assortment of Plug-ins might have different Addon Manager-like stores could be create and enhanced with shopping guidance and presentation. Ratings and Reviews might be added. Or collection/group suggestions might be added to reduce dependence on the “install everything and let God sort them out” approach.
I still don’t really get the difference except that (possibly?) all addons are plugins, but not all plugins are addons. And Addons are more “customer facing” while plugins are both customer and dev facing?
And of course the wiki search provides a very up to date Gramps 5.0 Wiki Manual - Plugin Manager and then 4 pages in other languages, and then an addon… listed as Plugin Manager. But it isn’t the plugin manager, it’s the addon Plugin Manager Enhanced. Which really isn’t confusing in the slightest. And listen, we need to talk about the wiki, but for now…
Is there any opportunity to just make it be 1 thing, that can cater to different audiences? It seems redundant at best. Could Plugin Manager Enhanced just become the integrated only one?
The Addon Manager is simply an “App store” – allowing plugins to be updated and installed. Only addons have the capability of being updated. In the future, there might be a way to supersede a “built-in” (or core) plug-in. But it is not a feature currently — not least because built-ins are invisible in the Addon Manager interface.
On the other hand, the Plugin Manager has full “management” of installed plug-ins (built-in or add-on) – disabling (hiding), uninstalling,
You can actually ‘supersede’ a built-in with creative use of both ‘managers’ in combination. First, clone a built-in plug-in’s Python module and the portion from the aggregate .gpr.py file to their own sub folder in the grampsxx/plugins folder. Then adapt the include paths in those files. Test that the clone is working by ‘hiding’ the built-in in the Plugin Manager. Restart and see if the Addon version shows in the Plugin Manager. After the clone functions, you can work on adding features.
And you can share your enhancements through the addon-source repository. But to use it properly, users will have to hide the built-in in the Plugin Manager before installing the new version via the Addon Manager
If I had my druthers, I druther that the vast majority of the built-ins would be stored as addons. (With only the bare minimum left as built-ins.) As addons would be seamlessly upgradable and not fettered to the major release cycle.
There is something about the Plugin Manager enhanced version where @Nick-Hall had a fundamental disagreement. Which seems to be why it was never adopted as the main version.
I’ve been playing with a “plus” version of enhanced. Maybe it will fare more successfully: it offers a preview of the plug-in and direct access to the README.md documentation. And searching of all the Registered keys of a plug-ins. (Such as the author.)
I’m torn between having the docs inside the frames of the Plugin Manager. (Or maybe a Release Notes viewer.)
Yes. The idea was to provide a very simple way for users to search for and install addons. It was inspired by a web page created by one of our users.
I was attempting to reduce the complexity for users. The Plugin Manager has concepts of built-ins and addons. These can be hidden/unhidden in addition to being installed/uninstalled in the case of addons.
Perhaps we could add some functionality to the Addon Manager for advanced users? We should still aim to keep the basic functionality simple though.
That sounds encouraging. I’ve shared some experimental variants of the Addon Manager that make the interface more inviting. The search and interactive lozenges feel MUCH more intuitive.
But the bloat is becoming concerning. The management of plugins is too vital to trust to something with increasing fragility.
The idea of an interface layer to offer Advanced features seems overly complex. The “developer mode” already is such an extravagance. That users cannot enable Developer Mode from inside the GUI (or easily determine which mode they are running) makes it an Easter Egg that is nearly impossible to diagnose and support.
The Stable, Beta, Experimental and Unstable statuses; Everyone, Expert and Developer audiences are unclear about how they affect anything but filtering in the Addon Manager.
The Addons tab of Addon Manageris fairly simple in functionality. But it is too limited by the one-by-one installs/updates when there are hundreds of addons to install.
The Settings tab misses the mark for simple interface but hits for mass installs/updates.
The Projects tab is deceptively simple in appearance but hides its black magic.
Yes. I’m sure that the interface can be improved. My original design really just copied the web interface.
This is why the Addon Manager started from fresh rather than extending the existing Plugin Manager.
These were intended to provide the selections available in the Use and Rating columns in the Addons wiki page, but slightly simplified. They are there for filtering. The “Unstable” and “Developer” options should be hidden from normal users.
Yes. This is the new code.
This just points to the old code. I didn’t rewrite anything here, and hence this area could probably be improved.
Yes, but I wanted the capability for developers to host their own addon collections.
That part works beautifully. The black magic part is the project URL.
Novice developers have to figure out the raw.githubuser.com URL to share. (And realize that they don’t share the raw folder path to the .json folder. They have to share the rawpath to one level up from that.)
And end-users that transcribe the URL are blind to any problems in their transcription. There is not even an alert about “404” error … if if the 404 is for the directory or it finds a directory bot not a .json file.
Even after having gained experience with 3rd-party Projects, I regularly have problems pointing Addon Manager a new repo… particularly if that repo isn’t hosted on GitHub.
I’m starting to wonder if it needs to parse a fully qualified URL for a readable .json file and figure out the appropriate Project URL from that? (Back-filling the raw.githubuser.com domain only if the submitted URL is for the github.com server. And correctly truncating the /listings/addon-xx.json portion.)
Without comment, let me tell you the story of one of my very first experiences as a (pretty highly) tech literate newish user in the 6.0 Windows environment.
Hmm, I wonder if there is a way to simplify data entry…
Let me search the Discourse and the Wiki for ideas…Solution! There is a great addon called Forms Gramplet and if that doesn’t work, maybe the Data Entry Gramplet, or the Import Text, or the… Cool! I love open source!
So, I went to the Addon Manager, downloaded Forms Gramplet, got it up and running, and realized I didn’t like how its census dating system overrode my data.
OK, no problem, I will uninstall it and try some of the other addons, that’s the joy of software where everyone can add stuff! So many new things to try (or make)!
How do I uninstall this?
*wiki search*
Create the page "Uninstall" on this wiki! See also the search results found.
Gramps 5.0 Wiki Manual - What's new?
*blink* *googles*
Ok, handled not in the Addon Manager but the Plugin Manager? Great, will go there to uninstall.
What the hell is hide?
*wiki search*
Create the page Hide on this wiki! See also the search results found.
De:Gramps 5.0 Wiki Handbuch - Kategorien
*annoyed google*
I need to download another addon from the Addon Manager to upgrade the native Plugin Manager into the Plugin Manager Enhanced to allow me to uninstall an addon because the native Addon Manager doesn’t manage the addons? Seriously?
In the Relationship View, the 3 most used buttons are “Add” (Add a new set of parents), “Share” (Add person as child to an existing family) and “Partner” (Add a new family with person as parent). This is confusing and I have to tooltip-check them from time to time. The confusion stems from the followings:
Both “Add” and “Partner” technically add people to the relationship/tree.
Under “Add” and “Partner”, you can of course share.
“Add” and “Share” do not make it clear who is added and where (at least without tooltipping); “Partner” is a bit more informative.
Icons don’t help at all.
I suggest the “Add” button should be renamed to “Parents” or better “Add parents”. If “Parents” and “Partner” are considered too similar, “Partner” should be renamed to the equally general “Spouse” (or “Add spouse”). “Share” should be renamed to “Add as child”. Icons should be revised to be more helpful.
View → Configure.. and 
Edit → Preferences… are closely related. One is for local settings, the other is for global settings.
Edit → Addon Manager… and Help → Plugin Manager.
