[Feature Request] Display plugins by categories / Filter for Plugins

One idea would be having a Toggle button to switch between "Installed" and "Repo" plugins and depending on whats selected we will apply Search and Filter on that one.Then probably we wont need two separate sections. just giving my opinion here.

Meanwhile I will also try to look for other plugins systems and wait for others' suggestions.

Just wanted to let you know I will be posting UI mockup for this but it might take a few days as I am not very used to making those.

Mockup for this is ready, its not 100% interactive but it does the job of showing my idea to you.
Here's the link: Mockup Prototype

Filtering work same way for both installed plugins and Community(renaming needed here) plugins. So I didn't include that one in the prototype.

I have done this via a simple toggle button. Also selected category's name goes into the Search box just as we do when adding 'Tags'.
Switching to 'Community' section automatically adds 'Recommend' as category filter.

Let me know your thoughts on this.

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Looks good, pretty much what I was thinking - in the meantime I had done some research of my own and found that, for note apps at least, those that even support plugins don't really have much in the way of filtering or a "nice" front end.

The closest I found was logseq which more or less has the functionality of what you have put together here:

I think the UI still needs a little tweaking - I know it is a concept but I mean things more like the elements used - for example I don't think an "on - off" toggle is the correct control for switching between the two groups.
I also think there needs to be consensus from the community (or from anyone else) if this general approach is a good idea (separating the two, or if we should stick to the existing method) before we go too far down the rabbit hole. If this is the correct view we also need to find out whether the default should be "installed" or "community" (although I think the second tag needs a new name). My preference would be "installed" but I totally understand the argument for the opposite.

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Thanks Daeraxa for your inputs. I especially liked the idea of further splitting the 'Plugins' and 'Themes' but I maybe be going too far at this point. Lets see what others think of the Mockup Prototype.

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Hey guys, As Daeraxa suggested it would be great if you guys can let me know that splitting the plugins into 'Installed' and 'Marketplace' sections would be good approach. So that I can provide another mockup using another switching mechanism.

Just to make sure you guys know, you can click on the Mockup Prototype and interact with it. Just start by clicking on 'Filter' icon and then it will highlight the next clickable part.

I'm not sure I like the approach of separating out the "Installed" and "Marketplace" sections. I see "Installed" as just another filter option at the same level as "Featured".

If I use the "Search for plugins" box would it search only the "Installed" plugins if "Installed" is toggled? Most people if using the search box won't be searching their installed plugins but the marketplace. It would require having to toggle the "Marketplace" and then searching which is an extra step.

I would however like the "Installed" filter to be selected by default as the most important thing is being able to toggle on/off or uninstall existing plugins. Finding new plugins is secondary.

Also, I would like the ability to layer the filters. e.g. what is "Popular" in the "Themes" category. I like how in VSCode you can do that by typing @popular @category:"themes" in the search box.

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For example, when I search for an extension in VSCode, it just shows me the ones I already have installed, I like that.

Thanks for the suggestions.

  • So in VSCode you are able to add only one filter at a time. You need to to type the extra filter by yourself.
    We can implement this by adding the filtered category to 'Seach bar' as we do when adding tags as this is more easy to understand by everyone.(as 'Themes' was added in below image)
  • This may raise a question, Should we allow filtering with multiple categories, In my opinion this won't be that much necessary as I think from Potential Categories there are not many plugins that require multiple categories.
  • As when I categorised them I added multple categories to only 13 plugins out of 109.
  • One idea would be if we added a new filter apart from categories as @shbach suggested (i.e. Popular, Newest) we should be able to add them to search bar(for e.g. next to 'Themes')

To being able to search only in installed ones you would have to first apply "Installed" filter right? otherwise it would search normally from marketplace.

But I liked the idea of ranking the installed one higher. So if we implemented it this way then there won't be need for separate section.
Let me know what do you think about this.

Thanks for all the hard work on this! It's turning into quite a project.

I'm not a big fan of the "fly-out"

image

They are generally considered poor accessibility. If possible it's good to avoid.

ETA: "Community" doesn't make any sense to the non-specialist. A community is a place you live or a group of people. Perhaps "Library"?

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If no keyword is entered or category is selected, all installed plugins are displayed.
As soon as a keyword is entered, the hits for the keyword and/or category are displayed and also the corresponding plugins which are already installed.

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Hey whitewall, Thanks for the inputs!

Learned something new! In that case maybe we can just place them below non-categories. But then we should take care that its height. let see what we can do.

Yes, it makes sense, but I think we are headed towards 'not' making separate section. So if we decided to make separate section then we can consider this.

Ohhk Got it. I was thinking you meant searching 'only' in "Installed" plugins. Also this is very similar to what we have now maybe we would need to extend it a little bit.

To summarise what has been discussed so far:

  • We prefer 'not' having separate section as "Installed" and "Library".
  • We may include "Installed" as a filter option which is selected by default.
  • As whitewall suggested 'fly out' menus should be avoided if possible. As they are bad for accessibility.

Then there is a question,

Should we allow filtering on "Installed" plugins also? I know that @Daeraxa agrees with this.

But I also want to hear others opinions. Do you think this is worth making a Poll?

But if we decided to allow this, then we would need to un-select/cancel the "Installed" filter and then apply the desired filter. I am not saying this is tedious but in my opinion it is not very smooth process also.
What do you think?

This looks good.

I see two types of categories:

  1. Popular, Newest, etc
  2. Appearance, Developer tools, Productivity, Themes etc

We only need to be able to apply filters of type 1 and type 2 together. I don't think we really need to apply a type 1 with another type 1 or a type 2 with another type 2.

I think we should target the most common use case. It is much more likely for someone to want to search the community plugins over the currently installed plugins (most people won't have so many installed that they would need to search). If someone wants to search their installed plugins they can manually apply the "Installed" filter and then search.

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Exactly! Thanks for making it more clear.

That makes sense, similar to what we have in VSCode.

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Here's the updated UI mockup: Link

(When viewing the prototype go to Options -> Fit to screen for better view)

  • I removed fly-over drop-down menu and added a normal one
  • removed the toggle button for 2 separate sections
  • added "Installed" as a filter option.

Let me know your thoughts on this. If this is good enough to start working on PR.

Looks good overall. I think there should be some sort of visual separation for "Installed", "Popular" and "Newest" from the rest. A line perhaps?

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Yep, Line separation would be good I think.

@makb

Maybe also have a line separating "Installed" on its own as well.

e.g.

Installed
————
Popular
Newest
————
Developer Tools
...

Thinking about it more I think we may want to independently apply the "Installed" filter with the filters from the other two categories. We could have the installed plugins show up at the top when we apply the other filters but I don't like that because we lose their original placement/order. For example I may want to still be able to see how popular my installed plugins are.

Thats even better!

I agree but I think we should limit the number of filter to 2. For example filtering 'Installed' -> 'Popular' -> 'Developer tools' won't be needed. What do you think?