Compatibility Charts (2014)
  • davidbdehaan
    We're looking at different ways of doing Compatibility on devot:ee add-ons.  We'd love to hear your thoughts on how we can best present this information. 
  • proimage
    Well first, I think there should be charts for both upper and lower bounds. The minimum requirements can be specified by the dev, who can also indicate what versions of EE & PHP (and perhaps Apache & MySQL?) - both old and new - the add-on has been tested with.

    I'd also like to see a rethinking of the add-on compatibility charts. Right now it's an often-misleading boolean "works/doesn't work" scenario. In all likelihood, 99% of all plugins out there have no issues whatsoever with, say, MSM or Matrix, and yet they're likely not marked as compatible with them simply because they don't have any MSM-specific or Matrix-specific features? There should be at least 3 levels of "compatibility" for this IMO, something like "Conflicts", "Doesn't Conflict", and "Utilizes".

    Above all though, I think it would be great to use crowdsourcing for the charts everywhere possible. If Add-on ABC was released for EE 2.3 but someone wants to give it a try under EE 2.8, they could then rate it's compatibility on a 1-5 scale:
    1. Installing Breaks EE
    2. Installs but doesn't work
    3. Partially works
    4. Works as expected
    Uhm... ok, a 1-4 scale. :p

    {/end2pence}

  • Natetronn
    This is how WP handles it for whatever it's worth: image

    It might not be what we want exactly but, I did want to add it as a reference.
  • rsanchez
    I'd recommend adding a field called "Last Known Compatible Version", where the dev can fill out the last version they tested on.
  • davidbdehaan
    I think whatever the final solution it will be, it will need the following things:
    1. Searchability: The added data needs to be searchable for it to be useful (ie, being able to search add-ons compatible with EE 2.8)
    2. Maintainability: It needs to be simple enough to maintain that the developers can do it fairly quickly with multiple add-ons every time a new version of EE is released.
    3. At least partially crowd sourced: There's a lot of open source add-ons that haven't been touched in over a year.  Just because they're not updated doesn't mean they no longer work or serve their purpose.  
    4. Easily viewed on add-on pages: There needs to be a way to easily view the compatible EE versions at a glance (comparable to the EE1/EE2 pills currently on the page)
    While I like the idea of how Wordpress does it, I'm not sure we'd have enough people listing compatibility of specific versions, especially with niche add-ons, with the EE community being quite a bit smaller.  

    Further thoughts on any of this is greatly appreciated, as we're looking at trying to figure out how to make something that will be useful for the community, without scaring people off if an add-on isn't tested in a specific version.
  • justjess
    "I think it would be great to use crowdsourcing for the charts everywhere possible."

    I agree with this - but imagine it might create headaches for devs based on per-case scenarios. So maybe an official "last tested version" type thing from the dev, along with a way for users to comment if/how they've taken it further?
  • Natetronn
    Just a thought...

    Could Devot:ee Monitor track EE versions and Add-on versions as well somehow if it doesn't do so already?

    For example, Matrix 2.5.10 is installed 1000 times on 2.7.3 and 800 times on 2.8.1 so on and so forth meaning that there is pretty good chance Matrix 2.5.10 is compatible with 2.8.1. If it said it was only installed, say, 20 times you'd know, compared to the previous version, it's only being tested to work with 2.8.1 at this point and not ready.
  • davidbdehaan
    I really like this idea, Nate.  The Lamplighter add-on already sends the site's add-on's versions to the app that checks version info, we'd just have to start storing the versions.  We'll definitely keep this idea in mind.
  • Sandwich
    I like that idea as well. :) Keep in mind you'll have to compensate for popularity of different add-ons, as well as the length of time an add-on has been installed on a particular version.

    Regarding the popularity, I guess there'd have to be an "Insufficient data" notice on add-ons with less than X registered installs (5? 10?), to prevent just-released or never-used add-ons from artificially appearing to be incompatible with something.

    As for the length of time, you'd just have to put in a filter to ignore add-ons who were only left installed on any given site for less than a single day, to avoid Lamplighter pings about add-ons that were installed and then removed.

    I dunno... I still like the idea of being able to manually indicate compatibility as well. Going the Lamplighter route seems like it would provide a ton of wonderful information about what does work, but if something doesn't, you wouldn't know - it would just be "Insufficient data".

    EDIT: Derp. Wrong account. Oh well... me = proimage up top. ;)
  • Natetronn
    Sandwich makes a good point about popularity and my idea.

    Maybe you could tie in a timeframe of sorts so you could see the natural progression of things. One of those Google Charts - line charts or something filtered by month and installs for a certain version of EE and add-on.

    Combining this information with some of the other features is more about giving us a visual to make our own best judgments.

    Maybe it's overkill, I don't know; just an idea.