Much improved and very well built

  • John Blackbourn

    (@johnbillion)


    WordPress Core Developer

    10 years, 1 month ago

    Last updated September 2015:

    Stream is technically a very good plugin. It is built to high standards and provides a good UI for its users. It is also well supported by its developers.

    Stream 2.0 unexpectedly moved to remotely hosted (cloud) storage for its activity records. This was a poor decision for numerous reasons, and is the source of many low scoring reviews (mine included).

    Fortunately, Stream 3.0 has moved back to local storage for its data. Yes, there are bound to be performance concerns on sites which log large amounts of data, but thankfully Stream offers a settings UI for excluding activity records based on various available rules. This is a great feature to provide.

    Stream is extensible and bundles support for several popular third-party plugins in addition to the exhaustive list of actions which get logged by default. It also has a setting to control which user roles can access the activity logs.

    Altogether, Stream is a well built plugin with a well thought out UI. I’m positive that it’s in good hands with XWP.

Viewing 3 replies - 1 through 3 (of 3 total)

  • Thanks for the feedback, John.

    1. No prior warning to existing users

    Although we did have an open beta before release, notified our existing members and put information about the update in the release notes, certainly we could have found even more ways to let people know about the changes coming.

    Unfortunately there is no other mechanism that I am aware of for communicating with users apart from putting a banner in the admin. Perhaps we could have had a point release prior to the actual release to place a banner in the admin or something.

    2. No option to retain the prior functionality

    Stream 1.4.9 (and every other past version) is available on GitHub, and we will never take it down. We are not interested in maintaining two variations of Stream. However, everything we have ever done is GPL, so that code will never die.

    3. Other questions

    Some of the other issues you’ve raised here will make good FAQ items on our website. Thanks for asking those.

    And actually, a very great deal of thought went into this release and the ways to pivot Stream into a secure service rather than just a plugin. The truth is that this is extremely difficult to do, and it’s impossible to please everyone. We definitely had to learn a few things the hard way, but we are also very happy to have thousands of users who love the new Stream.

    I’m sure you have already made up your mind about Stream, or you wouldn’t have written a review, but I do want to leave you with an article that came out right after the release that goes into more detail about the 2.0 changes if you are interested.

    https://wptavern.com/interview-with-stream-project-lead-frankie-jarrett

    Thanks again, and good luck with the 4.1 release.

    Best,
    Frankie

    Hey John,

    With Stream 3.0, we’ve rethought the way we’re handling the records. Everything’s local now, nothing stored in the cloud and no registration.

    It would be great if you could test it out, and let me know how you go. If you like it, please consider changing your review.

    Thanks,

    Luke

    Thread Starter John Blackbourn

    (@johnbillion)

    WordPress Core Developer

    Thanks for the heads up, Luke. This is good to hear. I’ll check out the new version of the plugin over the next few days.

Viewing 3 replies - 1 through 3 (of 3 total)
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