Addon Etiquette

[NonameFTW]

Originally Posted by Seerah A library registers with LibStub as it loads. If you have 5 addons installed, for example, that all use LibAddonMenu-1.0, then all five instances of LAM make a call to LibStub, passing along their version numbers. LibStub only accepts the library with the most recent version number and discards the rest. What does this mean for a user? They may have 5 copies of LAM installed inside their addons, but only 1 is being used. What of the extra 60kb of memory on your hard drive from the other four? What does it really matter, if you have a 500GB hard drive?

Thats actually a better solution.

Originally Posted by Seerah Now, let's talk the settings menu. .....

Some authors may create mutliple addon that are totally unrelated. In this case I would disagree with you. One author should be "allowed" to create more than settings menu. It's not confusing YET to have these kind of username named settings. But there will be players who are gonna heavily modify their interface with HUNDREDS of addons.
Now try to think of the situation here: This user would have thousands of settings he has to manage. This is not the problem. The problem comes down when multiple addons with totally different purpose use the same settings menu. You then have about 60 settings menus. Not the problem. The problem is when you have 60 settings menus which do not tell you which settings are inside.
I think that such a user would rather like to have 200 settings menus which tell him excatly what settings are inside than to click through 60 settings menus and scroll through them.

Again! I'm not against consolidating multiple addons into one settings menu. But there should be another logic behind it. One setting menu per Addon or Addonseries. Not one settings menu per author.


Of course the whole situation is a crappy solution. The best would be a integrated Interface which would create just one settings menu called "addon settings" or something. This would open up a new window with all addons that use the library. Each addon would have their name on the left side and be clickable. I think this solution would solve the whole problem because most authors would start to use the addon names by themselves.

I've seen in the comment section of you library that you're considering this for version 2.0 . This would defenitly help the whole community!


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Btw in general:

The only enforced standarts can be applied by zenimax. What you call conventions and what I mean with standarts is the same.

[Seerah]

I said that if it was possible*, then it would only be done for a total rewrite of the entire library - hence, version 2.0. I never said that I was already considering creating a version 2.0 or planning out features/changes for it.

Also, I never said that an author should be forced to only use one settings panel. I said that I encourage it, "if possible". Also related to your paranoia about the addons list, I also gave three scenarios where an author should NOT use LAM. And even still, addon authors that want options panels DON'T have to use LAM at all. And not all addons will have settings to configure. ZAM_Notebook has 0, for example.


*Adding a header/button to the Settings menu automatically creates a panel for it that opens when you click this header/button as per the game's API. So if I do make a 2.0, it may not be located in that menu at all.