We are (already) at the end of the summer holidays. This time is always the opportunity to make a status of your activity. Since 2009, I published four plugins. Some of them are mature, others still have good margins of evolution. So I took a few hours to set an overall development strategy for knowing what to add, change, or stop.
This post is an english translation of the post EG plugins: dernier status
Four plugins are currently published on WordPress.org:
- EG-Attachments displays attachments of posts,
- EG-Series manages series / list of posts or pages,
- EG-Archives provides a widget displaying archives in different forms,
- EG-Delicious synchronizes Delicious links with the WordPress blogroll. It’s my latest plugin, and also the most complex.
These four developments are hearing « honorable » (stats get on August 31st)
| Plugin | Number of downloads | First Published |
|---|---|---|
| EG-Archives | 300 | June 2009 |
| EG-Attachments | 2890 | February 2009 |
| EG-Delicious | 396 | July 2009 |
| EG-Series | 775 | April 2009 |
The most popular plugin is EG-Attachments, which is quite normal because it has virtually no competition.
EG-Attachments
The plugin is in stabilization mode since version 1.2.0: no major new features, but bug fixing, and taking into account of some WordPress features (posts locked by password, for example).
Two major features will come within two months:
- a click tracker: Initially, I didn’t want to add this kind of function, but I had a lot of requests. The tracking system will certainly come with one or two pages of statistics and an export function to CSV,
- a widget displaying the attachments of the current post.
The clicks tracker is already developped. I changed the download section in version 1.4.0 to anticipate this feature. Statistics pages are almost ready, but I still have some errors in the statistics themselves. All should be ready within weeks.
EG-Series
Certainly the heaviest works for next weeks. In fact this plugin is quite paradoxical: it does not meet a huge success (about 700 downloads since its publication), but it is very popular with people who are tested it. Main quality mentioned: it works (!?), and it is lighter than the others. I think that the first comment is too severe, because these plugins are good. This last remark is interesting because it reinforces my decision to write the plugin.
Now I will have to manage a contradiction: I would like to add some features, but I want to keep plugin as light as possible. Initially I didn’t want to create a taxonomy for managing series: the plugin might be heavier and I would do a clone of Organize series, or In-Series. But with the new taxonomy of WordPress 2.8, I must re-evaluate this possibility.
The main changes planned are:
- Manage order of posts in series: this function is not very difficult to add, except for ergonomic …
- Add functionalities to existing shortcodes: choice of format, adding the excerpt …
- Add new shortcodes, or modify the existing to display a table of contents, for example.
From an interface point of view, I will certainly have to use Ajax, but I never use this technology, so you have to be patient.
EG-Delicious
This plugin took me a long time in recent months. It will now enter in a phase of stabilization without major addition. There are some things to adjust:
- Clarify error messages to help users to better understand what happen,
- Improving ergonomics of synchronization pages
When I will be satisfied with the current version, I will add new features, like adding links to Delicious from the WordPress blogroll.
EG-Archives
The smallest plugin I develop. It meets some success with 270 downloads in two months. I plan two publications,
- Evolve the library of widget management (using the WP 2.8 API),
- Improve the presentation, giving the possibility to display a column for months, and a column for years
After that, I think the plugin will not see a lot of changes, unless a user gives me an idea.
Conclusion
Now you know everything about the future of my plugins. Except EG-Series, they won’t require, in theory, a lot of changes in the future. I say in theory, because I said the same thing about EG-Attachments few months ago, and finally this plugin has undergone many changes.
So if you have ideas for new features, please contact me
