Allow addons in multiple catagories, or add categories

[Boradan]

HI.
I have written an addon for prot warriors and pallies to check their Combat table coverage and to see the effect buffs and gems have on this Stat.

Unfortunately I cant make this class specific for more than one class, so currently it is only available in the warrior section, so pallies wont be able to find it.

Recommendation:
Have the ability to list an addon in 2 or 3 categories
OR
create a 'Role Specific' section to go along side Class specific.
There are a lot of addons out there written just for healers or DPSers (of any class), and dont fall under any other category.
Sub-sections would be: Healing, DPSing and Tanking.

[Cairenn]

Hi Boradan,

Yeah, making it possible to have an addon showing in multiple categories is something we've been wanting to do for a long time now. Unfortunately, there are so very many things we want to do and Dolby is only one person (awesome as he is!).

Adding role specific sub-categories is certainly something we can do, and we will. Thanks for the suggestion.

[Cairenn]

Originally Posted by Cairenn < snip > Adding role specific sub-categories is certainly something we can do, and we will. Thanks for the suggestion.

And have, in fact, done.

[Dolby]

You can now choose multiple categories, just go to the "Manage AddOn" link on the file info page.

[Qupe]

Any chance of being able to specify exactly which addons your addon can plug into when choosing the "Plug-ins" category (ie - it's able to plug into multiple addons)?

Not sure how possible/useful this suggestion is, but as a future consideration perhaps. Thanks for the multi-category options, it's awesome!

[Dolby]

You should not upload directly to the plugins category. Find the addon its a plugin to and go to the optional files tab and press the upload link there. This way it will say what the requirement for the plugin is for and be listed on the main addon optional files list.

I should add a warning on the upload script for that.

[Ketho]

Is there any consideration or moderation on if say, someone would put his addon in 5 or 10 random categories where it wouldn't really belong into?

[Qupe]

Originally Posted by Dolby You should not upload directly to the plugins category. Find the addon its a plugin to and go to the optional files tab and press the upload link there. This way it will say what the requirement for the plugin is for and be listed on the main addon optional files list. I should add a warning on the upload script for that.

Well, mainly if it's a plug-in of one addon already, with the capability to plug into another one - generally applicable to addons that currently exist that are only a plug-in of one addon.

[Cairenn]

Originally Posted by Ketho Is there any consideration or moderation on if say, someone would put his addon in 5 or 10 random categories where it wouldn't really belong into?

We will be watching what categories they are tagged for, yes.

Originally Posted by Qupe Well, mainly if it's a plug-in of one addon already, with the capability to plug into another one - generally applicable to addons that currently exist that are only a plug-in of one addon.

Ah, you mean being able to tag a plug-in as being for multiple addons?

[Phanx]

I've also run into issues in the past where an addon didn't have "Allow updates/patches and plugins" enabled, so it wasn't possible to upload anything as a plugin for it. I don't remember which addon(s), though, as it was a long time ago.

The problem there might be that "Allow updates/patches" and "Allow plugins" are combined into one option. For my own addons, I usually have this disabled. I'd be fine with people tagging their addons as being able to plug into mine, but I don't want people to be able to attach "updates" and "patches". If there is something they think needs to be fixed in my addon, I want them reporting it to me so I can fix it in the official version.

Also:

It might a good idea to make a separate "Plug-Ins" tab in addition to the existing "Other Files" tab, and rename the "Other Files" tab to "Previous Versions". I can see many users not realizing that they can find plugins for the addon they're looking for under a tab named "Other Files", especially when Curse uses the "Other Downloads" tab on their addon pages exclusively for showing older versions.

Many people don't seem to use the plugin option. For example, on Grid, only 15 plugins are shown there, but there are a lot more than 15 Grid plugins on WoWI.

[Qupe]

Originally Posted by Cairenn Ah, you mean being able to tag a plug-in as being for multiple addons?

Yes ma'am!

[zohar101]

While I'm all for more categories/subcategories, putting compilation or addon into multiple groups feels a bit like "let me post into as many categories as I can to inflate my number of downloads" strategy.

I mean what's the point. For UIs, if it's multipurpose it goes into general. If it's one specialized role, then it goes into its respective category. If it's minimalistic or has graphical highlights then you choose those categories instead. Doesn't mean it's only that. It's just the aspect you're highlighting.
Now you browse categories and you run across same compilations over and over and doesn't feel all that efficient when you're looking for variety.

I think it would be even worse for addons, trying to find that one elusive addon you know you've seen a few weeks ago, and usually I can narrow it down by category but that would now become completely irrelevant as you'd have so many more addons in each category and all repetitions from another one. I can see losing browsing by category as a search strategy altogether. What happens when you search for a term and you then sort your search results by category? Are you going to be seeing something repeated in your search results 5 times? Or you just going to lose that sorting option altogether?

This is exactly why I don't like browsing curse. It's pointless to try to use their category system cause of this. Every major category will have like 30 pages worth of stuff, most of which is only marginally related to the category itself.

[Ketho]

I don't see how, for example EasyLightwell can go in 9 different categories, although most of them seem reasonable

Buff, Debuff, Spell, Action Bar Mods, Casting Bars, Cooldowns, Priest, Combat Mods, Data Mods, Raid Mods, Unit Mods, Beta-version AddOns

[Rilgamon]

I dont think its getting worse. My addons are mostly little scripts with broker support.
Thats why nearly all of them are in the data broker categorie. But some offer more than that.
zz_Coords for example can add coords to map/minimap so "Map, Coords, Compasses" is used there.
For a user it will be really helpful if he could see without looking deeper that the addon is listed in both categories. So he knows he gets a broker with additional functions.

[Cairenn]

Guys, I'm going to close this thread. Let's move the conversation over to this one. Just so everything is in one place. Some people are posting here, some there, answers are given in one but not in the other so the same question gets asked again, etc. Not stifling the conversation at all, just consolidating.