WooCommerce 3.0 – plugins unknown compatibility – don’t know need header tags

  • Resolved MKSnMKS

    (@mksnmks)


    7 years, 2 months ago

    Hi,

    General Situation
    The latest version of WooCommerce does a check of the user’s plugins and reports plugins which are not known to be compatible with it.
    It uses a (possibly ‘new’) system, which not all plugin authors seem to be aware of.
    This (new?) method makes use of tags in the headers. If these are not present, then the WooCommerce update reports the plugin as unknown compatibility.
    The plugin can actually be compatible, but if the header tags are not present, then the compatibility is not known.
    If the user is not sure of compatibility, then they may be reticent to update WooCommerce, until such time as the plugin gets fixed. The report from WooCommerce does not include additional instructions for the user, other than to wait for an update of the plugin. This can cause a lengthy delay to the update process, which delays all the benefits of the update (such as speed, efficiency, or security safety).

    Specific Problem
    The problem seems to be that a number of plugin authors are unaware of this, and are not being informed of the need to do so – not being informed in such a way as to draw this problem to their attention.
    Until such time as they correct their plugin headers, then the plugin will continue to be reported by WooCommerce as being of unknown compatibility, even if the author has stringently tested the plugin, and found it to be compatible.

    Some suggestions for possible solutions
    There are probably many ways to solve this problem, but something of some sort needs to be done.

    a) possibly include additional information in the report from the WooCommerce update, to the user that “this unknown compatibility may be due to ‘missing tags in the header’, and the user is advised to let the plugin author know of this problem.”

    b) come up with some way to notify all/many woocommerce related plugin developers to all receive a blanket message about important changes to woocommerce. This is probably already in place, but could do with some way of categorizing or prioritizing the information.

    c) collect feedback from user’s (optionally according to the users permission/allowance) which would allow the user’s woocommerce update to send the list of plugins of unknown compatibility, so that the woocommerce team can sort out the problem with each plugin author.

    d) similar to (c) but use a more manual method for the user to send the list of plugins, e.g. email, fill in a form, click a confirmation button.

    e) the problem is possibly not so much with authors that are starting with woocommerce3.0 compatible plugins, but is probably more likely to be plugins that were developed with earlier woocommerce versions and these earlier version plugins have not had the tags added to them when found to be compatible with woocommerce3.0. That’s just a guess, but in just about all 14 plugins that were of unknown compatibility with WC3 on our system, they had all been compatible with earlier WC versions.
    So this information needs to be known for authors of plugins compatible with earlier WC versions.

    Additional Considerations
    These tags in the headers seem to be used to declare compatibility.
    If they are not present, then compatibility is not known (though if they are omitted then it suggests that the programmers were not fully aware of all necessary steps needed for full compatibility).
    If not presently the case, it would be handy to be able to use the header tags to also declare ‘incompatibility’, to definitely help avoid small disasters.

    Thanks for reading this.
    I hope you find it helpful.

    • This topic was modified 7 years, 2 months ago by MKSnMKS. Reason: layout for clarity
    • This topic was modified 7 years, 2 months ago by MKSnMKS.
Viewing 2 replies - 1 through 2 (of 2 total)
  • Joel Williams

    (@joelwills)

    Automattic Happiness Engineer

    Hi there!

    Thanks for your detailed analysis. You may wish to copy this over to

    https://github.com/woocommerce/woocommerce/issues

    Which is where bugs, issues and features are discussed for WooCommerce with the developers. Your list of potential solutions can be discussed there, as that is where the developers will see your thoughts.

    Thanks!

    Thread Starter MKSnMKS

    (@mksnmks)

    Hi Joel,

    Please feel free to expedite the action you have recommended.
    I am supplying feedback which WC may or may not be interested in.
    But I am not interested in joining another system of contacting a plugin author, as dictated by the plugin author.

    Additional to this actual specific topic, this inspires two more suggestions;
    1) Github might like to consider having some sort of plugin or API, that allows WordPress (or any other project on their site), to copy topics from offsite forums to the feedback channel of any project hosted on Github.
    This might have options for the author and user, to control whether the topic is copied or accepted on a case by case basis, automatic sorting to categories suitable for the project team.
    2) WordPress might consider having a feedback method built into their plugin that will seamlessly collect feedback from any user, and send it to where ever it needs to go. This saves users all sorts of hassles finding out where to send info, and manual finger clicks, and project teams to and fro messages. If seamless is not possible, then as obstruction free as possible would be good. There is no telling what feedback is just not even being created because users know very well the hassle required to get something going. This suggestion would benefit any plugin in WordPress, and likely have a significant improvement in the development cycle.

    Hoping that some of this is of enough interest to somebody.

    Thanks

Viewing 2 replies - 1 through 2 (of 2 total)
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