[Bf-committers] Bf-committers Digest, Vol 953, Issue 1

Ryan Inch mythologylover75 at gmail.com
Sat Jun 19 08:13:18 CEST 2021 

@ Sybren A. Stüvel
 > I disagree here. Having an online repository would:
 >   - make updating add-ons easier, allowing add-on developers to push
 >   updates faster than once per Blender release,
 >   - provide a unified way for add-ons to be published and made available
 >   in Blender, making more add-ons available with the same ease as the 
bundled
 >   ones,

Having an online repository could make it easier to update what are 
currently non-bundled add-ons, and it would give more freedom to the 
developers of the add-ons currently bundled with Blender, but it 
wouldn't provide a unified way to publish add-ons unless all other ways 
are shut down.  It seems to me that as it stands now, another add-on 
repository would just further fragment add-on distribution.

Also, I think the price of having to release updates less often and 
adhere to Blender's release schedule is perfectly acceptable for the 
benefit of having your add-on in the hands of everyone who downloads 
Blender.

Now, if you want to add a way to search and download additional add-ons 
from an online repository into Blender's UI, that could be a good 
improvement.

 >   - given that it would still be possible to bundle add-ons together and
 >   provide them as one downloadable package, still allow for 
private/offline
 >   installs.

Yes, you could make a bundle of add-ons available for download and 
side-load it, but that adds another step and another download, and not 
everyone will be aware it exists, as opposed to having the bundle of 
add-ons present in Blender by default and ready to use.

 > Blender is made for artists and other users, and not for the benefit of
 > tutorial makers. Tutorials can be updated, and new ones are made all the
 > time.

Tutorials can be updated, but most of them probably won't be, and I 
don't think it serves users/artists to decrease the number of relevant 
tutorials they have access to.

 > I agree, to the point that having easy updating, a publishing platform
 > that's available to more people, and that can include things like 
ratings,
 > reviews, a bug reporting system, etc. would benefit the people &
 > communities around Blender.

It is already easy to update the add-ons that are bundled with Blender, 
simply update Blender.  For add-ons not bundled with Blender, it may be 
easier to update them this way, but then you have added security 
concerns like Dan McGrath mentioned.  The bundled add-ons already have a 
built-in bug reporting system, and most other add-ons are hosted on 
sites like GitHub, which also have built-in bug reporting systems.  As 
to ratings and reviews, I've never seen a need for bundled add-ons to 
have those because they are high quality, otherwise they wouldn't be 
bundled with Blender.  As to other add-ons not currently bundled by 
Blender that could be added to this new online repository, it would make 
more sense to me to integrate them into something like the Blender 
Market which is already well known and already has ratings and reviews, 
rather than further fragmenting add-on distribution.

 > Having a curated list of add-ons is tangential to the way these 
add-ons are
 > distributed. This curation work could still happen for an online 
repository
 > as well. Might be an easier process too, and might make it more 
visible for
 > developers how to get your add-ons in there.

I don't see how a curated list would add anything, the bundled add-ons 
are already Blender's "List of Favorite Add-ons" and while having lists 
from other people could be useful, you can already find such lists online.

 > I don't think that it's a matter of "denying them [the same marketing]".

I was referring to Brecht's comment of "as an add-on author you get both 
the freedom and the responsibility for development, docs, and marketing. 
If anything we should decouple such things more, rather than integrating 
them." which to me suggested that he thought add-ons should not be a 
part of the release notes at all, i.e. denying them marketing.

 > Where in the community is there a "changelog"
 > or "release notes" page that can be copied to the official fancy Blender
 > release notes?

I am speaking of the add-ons that come bundled with blender, so the 
release notes page for them that can be copied into the official fancy 
release notes is the Add-ons page of the wiki release notes [1]

 > Who is taking it up themselves to do this work, to not only
 > keep track of what's changing, but also to cherry-pick the most important
 > changes, and to contact artists to show these off in some visually 
pleasing
 > way?

The developers of the add-ons bundled with Blender are responsible for 
keeping their section of the wiki release notes up to date and they 
often provide images to showcase their changes.  As to cherry-picking 
the most important changes, I can only speak from my own experience, but 
I have never been asked to do this, although I would be happy to 
highlight the important changes to my add-on for the official fancy 
release notes.

 > There is a difference between a paid-for online repository (like Blender
 > Market) vs. a Blender Foundation run (or backed) free repository that's
 > used by Blender by default. I think the latter would still be attractive,
 > regardless of the fact that there are other online add-on 
repositories out
 > there.

It seems to me that it would be far easier to add a free section to an 
already established repository like Blender Market (just an example) and 
integrate Blender with that, than to host your own repository, plus you 
would have the added benefit of all the add-ons already present in the 
repository.


@Brecht Van Lommel
 > Add-ons are reviewed once, mostly to see if they are useful and don't 
have
 > significant design or implementation issues. The UI/UX is not 
reviewed the
 > same way. Many of them would need to go through more iterations or get
 > significant design changes to be accepted in core Blender.

Interesting.  All I can say is that I've never found add-ons to feel out 
of place when it comes to their UI/UX and the rest of Blender.

 > For an official online repository that is integrated into Blender, users
 > would not notice much difference compared to bundled add-ons. I think it
 > would be valuable to have a way for more developers to share their 
add-ons
 > in the same way.

If the bundled add-ons were moved out of Blender and into an online 
repository each user would have to explicitly search for and download 
them instead of having them ready to be used out of the box.  And of 
course it would be nice to have a one stop shop to get add-ons, but 
adding another place to download them is not going to provide that, it 
will only add another place users have to check (unless you can 
integrate with other sites like Blender Market, Gumroad, etc. as a sort 
of meta search.  That would provide some added value, although I still 
wouldn't move the bundled add-ons to this new service).

 > I don't see what changed? Add-ons have had their own page in the wiki
 > release notes for a very long time, and in the blender.org release 
notes I
 > only see an occasional mention of a new add-on.

- The release notes for 2.80 [2] directly mention at least the glTF 
add-on, and Rigify.
- The release notes for 2.81 [3] directly mention at least Rigify, the 
glTF add-on, the FBX add-on, and the add-ons page on the wiki release notes.
- The release notes for 2.82 [4] directly mention at least Rigify, the 
Amaranth Toolkit add-on, the Sun Position add-on, the PDT add-on, the 
Collection Manager add-on, and the glTF add-on.
- The release notes for 2.83 [5] directly mention at least the 
Collection Manager add-on, and the glTF add-on.
- The release notes for 2.90 [6] directly mention at least the glTF 
add-on, and the add-ons page on the wiki release notes.
- The release notes for 2.91 [7] directly mention at least the Blender 
Kit add-on.
- The release notes for 2.92 [8] no mention of add-ons.
- The release notes for 2.93 [9] no mention of add-ons.

Some of these mentions are new add-ons and some of them are updates to 
current add-ons .
Interestingly, 2.81-2.83 don't link directly to the main page of the 
wiki release notes.

 > There are certainly challenges implementing such a system [official 
online add-on repository], though it's been
 > done many times in other applications. It's too early to go into such
 > details, it's not clear this will even happen or when.
I think it's important to discuss the challenges of a particular course 
of action before the decision to take that course is made, and since 
this will directly affect add-on developers, I'm glad you have brought 
it up now for discussion.


@Dan McGrath
Thanks for chiming in, you raise some very good points!  Blender seems 
to prefer going with fully open source solutions if possible, so I would 
guess they would go with self-hosted here.


@Harley Acheson
Yes it would, and it has been done, inconsistently, in the past.  I 
personally would prefer a whole section for add-ons with some pictures, 
but your solution would work too ;)
You'll notice that I didn't raise this issue until 2 releases had gone 
by with no mention at all of add-ons within the fancy release notes.  
I'm also still wondering why no one has added add-on commits to the 
credit gen script.



Ryan

[1] https://wiki.blender.org/wiki/Reference/Release_Notes/2.93/Add-ons
[2] https://www.blender.org/download/releases/2-80/
[3] https://www.blender.org/download/releases/2-81/
[4] https://www.blender.org/download/releases/2-82/
[5] https://www.blender.org/download/releases/2-83/
[6] https://www.blender.org/download/releases/2-90/
[7] https://www.blender.org/download/releases/2-91/
[8] https://www.blender.org/download/releases/2-92/
[9] https://www.blender.org/download/releases/2-93/

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