Lets think of the future and focus on Revolution here, and not worry about Evolution extras such as Ditto and Jot for now.
I think it would make most sense if MODX renamed the extras that are marked as "solid" to something which is completely self-explanatory.
WayFinder > Menus
FormIt > Forms
Quip > Commments
Archivist > Archives
phpThumbOf > Thumbnails
Login > User Profiles
Discuss > Forum
TinyMCE > WYSIWYG
SimpleSearch > Search
Gallery > keep it as gallery
IF > keep it as IF, or maybe If Statement if it were to be expanded to include If Else
getResources > all the "get" extras make sense because they simply get something from the database.
There might be a short-term confusion surrounding the names on blog posts, searches and documentation but over time these things can be updated and eventually we'll have well-named extras.
And if people are worried about loosing some brandability of these names, we could always look to a company like Apple for inspiration, their core set of apps is either completely self-explanatory, such as DVD Player, Dictionary, Calculator, Mail, or they put an "i" before the name, such as iPhoto, iTunes, iMovie, iCal, etc - if we
had to add something referring to the MODX branding to the "solid" extra names they could be modBlog, modCommnets, modSearch, modForum, etc; where the "x" is being replaced by the functionality of the extra.
I think the MODX core team should put something in place where they can rename existing extras without running into licences issues or problems with intellectual property. If all of this code is on GitHub, and a developer decices to stop working on his extra, then the MODX core team can fork it and then resume the development - taking control of the situation here is really important to prevent many half-finished extras floating around adding confusion.
Putting something like this in place now would have so many benefits in the long run, I'm sure people are searching for "MODX forum plugin", "thumbnail generator MODX" or "MODX blogging extra" and if a single, "solid" extra called Forum, Thumbnails or Blog came up first it would make a new users life a lot easier.
I noticed if I search for "MODX blogging extra" Mark Hamstra's package
Essentials for Blogging shows up first; is essentially the "solid" Blog extra from the MODX core team going to duplicate this? As a new user, once the official "solid" Blog extra has been released this could cause extra confusion?
There's already a pretty steep learning curve to MODX, and choosing exotic names for the extras doesn't help this.
Being able to easily search and find and install Thumbnails, Menus and Comments would be infinitely clearer than phpThumbOf, WayFinder and Quip.
On another note, is there currently a "solid" eCommerce extra? I haven't used VisionCart in a long time, but is this at a stage where it could be simply called Store or eCommerce, so when people search for a "MODX store plugin" or "MODX ecommerce plugin" an extra like this would show up first?
Taking a step back for a second, why are we using names such as Chunks and Snippets? The name Template is complete self-explanatory and is a fitting name for its purpose. But to a new user a Chunk can be quite confusing, why not rename these HTML and PHP? Instead of inserting some Chunks into your Templates, you'd add HTML into your Templates?
Additionally, while writing this I've had to keep correcting myself from writing "plugin" to "extra" why have we called them "extras" and not something clearer like a "plugin"?
[ed. note: AdamWintle last edited this post 14 years, 11 months ago.]
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