Request: New Plug-in Management Site

[DaveD]

I am a relatively new user of Paint.NET and I think the program is fantastic with an incredibly bright future. The additional plug-ins available on the forum are also fantastic and open up a huge area of creativity. However, as a new user, I find the plug-in forum to be quite inefficient in many respects. I would like to propose an idea to better manage the plug-ins for Paint.NET on a different web-based site other then forum-based.

Problems:

- Authors use different date formats for last modified date of plug-in (some use none at all).

- Difficult sifting through Sticky'd and un-sticky'd plug-ins.

- Some authors have one main thread, plus individual threads for same plug-ins.

Ideas:

- A table-like chart that can be sorted Alphabetically, by Date, version compatibility, etc.

- A row that shows the date that the plug-in was last modified.

- A row that shows which version(s) of Paint.NET the plug-in is compatible with.

- A link to a forum thread for discussion on that plug-in.

- Possibly a rating system for users to rate plug-ins (and also sort by Ratings).

- Basically, one central location to find the 'latest' version of all plug-ins in a well organized view.

Now I can imagine that I have not covered all of the problems or ideas toward this plug-in management to make it more organized. That is the purpose behind this thread, to get ideas and suggestions from others to get as much input as possible. As a new user, this is one area that I think Paint.NET could really improve upon.

Any comments, ideas and suggestions are greatly appreciated.

Cheers,

Dave

[david.atwell]

Take a look at BoltBait's website, and Ash's website. You could certainly do the same, but keep in mind- you cannot host the plugin yourself (or give links to the direct download) without the author's permission. All you can do is provide a link to the forum thread. This ensures that the author's copyright is preserved.

Hope this helps. :-)

[DaveD]

I wasn't thinking about making some sort of 'unofficial' site for Paint.NET plug-ins. I was referring to a page that is hosted on the Paint.NET site and maintained officially by the Paint.NET team as a central location for plug-ins.

[Wither]

All Paint.NET plugins are written by individuals. Most (I assume) would rather host their plugin themselves.

Having a link to one hosted anywhere else would require the permission of every plugin's author.

I have a feeling many of them wouldn't give their permission to this, and some of them don't really post on the board anymore (and, hence, are difficult to reach).

It's a great idea, but it's dependent on a bunch of other people and circumstances coming together.

It's not really as easy as "let's make a page with all the plugins and call it good".

[DaveD]

As I stated in my first post, the chart (table or whatever) would contain a link to the forum post which would contain the download link.

[Wither]

I must've missed that, my apologies.

Well, I'd say your best bet is to tackle it yourself!

[pyrochild]

Unless the Plugin Management Site (I was going to acronym that, but decided against it... ) had its own database and was used as the primary source of plugin acquisition and submission/publishing, it would simply be farrrr too much work to maintain.