[Bf-committers] Blender App Central / Add-on Manager

[Campbell Barton]

@Moraes, agree we should really have something like this!

Just to note that addons can be `installed` as zip files currently -
so all a tool needs to do at a very basic level is to extract files
into a dir.

(yes there is possible dependency hell and how to manage
un-installing. but for now most addons are in 1 dir and don't depend
on others so lets ignore those problems for the purpose of
discussion).

Regarding addons not always installing - its really the job of the
author to make sure they do, its very simple (addon in a zipdir) -
probably they put it in a sub-sub-dir and it gives problems

I'm also wary of adding yet-another-layer over addons, but think this
can work as an online installer/repo - simply saves us distributing
every addon/theme/material with blender.



Some options are. ..
- Web front end which can interact with blender (as suggested before)
- don't have anything to add to this, I don't know web programming.

- Do something like the "Eclipse-IDE" - In-application extension
installer. where you point it to a number of URL's which are sources
for extensions - people could host own extensions repo if they really
wanted, this can manage checking for updates and listing available
extensions.

- Use pythons own packaging system - "easy_install" or "pip", didnt
investigate it but since py has a packaging system could be useful,
suspect its overkill for our purpose though.
Note that this is more of a backend - so could use any kind of web/gui frontend.


However we get the issue of how to store this data, manage logins -
trust who uploads files etc.

As much as worrying about multiple addon-overlays I'm concerned with
multiple (too many!) ways for devs to contribute (having to give devs
access to multiple logins / repos).


Personally I'd like whatever system we use to be a front-end to source
control (so devs commit our extension repo and magically get listed) -
but my impression is many scripters just want to upload a zip over a
web interface - or something as simple. However I really don't like to
loose the benefits of source control.
Though we could just assume devs have their own source-control and
these online extensions are working snapshots of that - like how many
packaging systems work.

It would be good to avoid having to write our own linux-distro style
packaging system, if we can keep it simple+workable we give ourselves
a lot less problems.


- Campbell

On Tue, Jan 10, 2012 at 7:47 AM, mindrones <mindrones at gmail.com> wrote:
> Hi.
>
> RE: wiki
> -------------------
>
> It always amuses|depresses me when I hear talking like that about the wiki.
>
> Not that I'm a mediawiki fanboy (and I mean it) but let's face it:
> millions of people use Wikipedia to _communicate_, and I don't hear
> them lament as much as I hear in the blender circles.
>
> The wiki syntax is very simple and you hardly need to use deep/nerdy
> stuff to express your idea or knowledge.
>
> See http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Help:Contents#Editing to get going
> (avoid the advanced section, you don't really need it to write simple
> text).
>
> Even if it was a bit more complex (and as you can see it's not) from
> people that use Blender I'd expect it's a snap.
>
> IMHO it has more to do with some people in these circles being (or
> feeling :P) "artists" and hence having a natural sense of rejection
> towards hierarchies/organization/structure and (oh my!) rules.
> I can understand that, and writing documentation is boring and not
> fun, but it's the act of documenting being boring, not the tool
> per-se.
>
> Long story short, IMHO it's just a pre-concept (or in many cases,
> lazyness) stopping you from using the wiki.
>
>
> RE: addons
> -------------------
>
> There has been discussion and a proposal for a similar project, see
>
> http://wiki.blender.org/index.php/User:Mindrones/Bf-extensions/External_addons
>
> but for a lack of time it just didn't happened yet. Not perfect but
> still I provide the link as a reference in case it can be useful.
>
> Here again, I'm pretty much amused (but again also quite depressed)
> when I hear people lamenting the current situation of bf-extensions
> repository. Try to do a leap back to 3 years ago and you'll understand
> what I mean.
> Even if you were lucky enough to find the script you wanted in google,
> you had to report bugs to the developer in mail or via forum, and the
> fix was uploaded to some personal website or worst, on some sharing
> site (which is the reason why we deleted all the external links from
> scripts when we started): most of them were just broken.
>
> So, again, IMHO it's just a pre-concept that things are so awful in
> bf-extensions.
>
> I don't like the idea of having separate repositories from the one in
> BF svn, and pretending that they become "official" (distributed in or
> through blender), for the simple reason that if you can put work into
> those projects you could instead put effort in the BF repository
> project, and help improve stuff, review scripts, provide patches,
> gather people, explain some basic rules, spread the word, etc: it
> would grow a lot faster and healthier.
>
> Bf-extensions is not perfect, and yeah there are some rules, but they
> have been decided based on common sense and they work well if, as said
> in a previous mails, you want to share with the public.
>
>
> Regards,
> Luca

-- 
- Campbell