[procrastinator]

I think the answer for your question is (not so sure of the Q ):

The only way you have an update or popup of a given addon is if you have installed the repo of that addon.

So you won't get updates without the repo installed, so yes, it would be better to have repos addon link also. But there's so many things (columns) already and the links to installations of the addons are not necessary in reality and get outdated every time the addon is updated, demanding more maintenance of the table, and I bet many users might just install the addon and forget about the repo. So by forcing to install via XBMC the repo and then the addon we in fact will be "helping" the user, our self (less question later), making maintenance lighter, the table cleaner.

Also would like to point out that's there is already the Unofficial Add-on Repositories, so if we make the link available here for the repos we will be duplicating info from an already perfect (so far) wiki/addon.

I think the best choice is to make a column in which we point to XBMC or Unofficial Add-on Repositories, in case its the UAR we add the repository owner. So it might seem messy, but I think is the best for user and maintenance of page.

I'm glad to see you put a column for the repositories in. As you said it would definitely be better for the end user, and developers if links can be provided to the addons themselves and the repos so that the addons are kept up to date.

I'm aware of the Repositories Wiki page and the Repository Installer Add-on. It's been a very useful addon for me! And I can see that this might end-up duplicating functionality if a link directly to the repository zip file is included on this Addons wiki page, however this might be a logical extension of that addon. I'm not a python coder, but it would seem like the same framework could be applied to an unofficial addon installer. But this is probably a point for discussion with Temhil (who posted the Repo Installer) but according to his user page he hasn't been on the forums for a few days so probably doesn't know anything about this new wiki page yet.

EDIT: I just noticed that you actually removed the direct addon zip download column. It might be a good idea to keep this link on the wiki page as well as the the repo link. Though you should make clear in the description above the table that for automatic updating the addon must be installed via the repo. You could keep the column narrow by just using the word "zip" as the link to the file in all cases, e.g. <a href="http://dl.dropbox.com/u/9033273/Icefilms.zip">zip</a>. I imagine that if an addon is made for installing unofficial addons, and that addon uses this list, then it could be told to install both the addon zip and the repo at the same time. This would make installation a one-step process (i.e. you wouldn't have to install the repo and then install the addon), and would also ensure the addon is kept up to date. Obviously, this is just my opinion and if you don't think its the best way to go then you are welcome to disregard it. And obviously if anyone else has an opinion, then please add it to the thread!

You can also keep the width of the forum link column down by just using the word "link" instead of the addon name. It looks OK at the moment with just "Neon" on the list, but once you get bigger names that column could get quite wide.

Like I said, more columns will start to make the table more messy and loose consistency. It's possible to add as many columns to only one table as it's needed and if it's what people want it's ok, but I think that if it's needed given category could be braked down more and would be a better result, you can even navigate from the top index and you don't get tables of 30 continuous addons, even if you get a column tag, skin is going to be a tough one to digest and I gave no idea go to break it down.

Anyway, I'm just thinking, until it's done it's hard to say what's best in reality, I'm more see to believe.

If anyone could make a break down/ list of this given categories Movies and Music I would appreciate it, as I don't know them all that well.

I don't think that a further breakdown of categories would work that well, which is why I suggested tags instead. The reason for this is that many of the addons handle multiple functions, and there would be too much overlap to separate them into separate categories. For example the CNN addon is just News, but the BBC iPlayer addon is News, TV, and Film.

You might want to leave the tags/further sub-categorization for a later date. Just get it set up for now and we'll deal with this when its absence becomes a problem.


BTW: When you make a post stating that you've updated the wiki page, please could you paste a link to that page into the post as well. Thanks

[KiSUAN]

I'm aware of the Repositories Wiki page and the Repository Installer Add-on. It's been a very useful addon for me! And I can see that this might end-up duplicating functionality if a link directly to the repository zip file is included on this Addons wiki page, however this might be a logical extension of that addon. I'm not a python coder, but it would seem like the same framework could be applied to an unofficial addon installer. But this is probably a point for discussion with Temhil (who posted the Repo Installer) but according to his user page he hasn't been on the forums for a few days so probably doesn't know anything about this new wiki page yet.

I've also consider the "Unofficial Addon Installer" addon, that might contain the Unofficial Add-on Repositories, but the truth is there is no need for it as it would be a very bad duplicate of the XBMC addon browser, you don't need an Addon Installer, you already have that (XBMC Addon Browser), you only need to have installed the repos. Beside most of the Unofficial addons don't have compressed files, they are only available through SVN or Git, didn't wanted to mention this before because the post was already getting long, in the other hand you have the official addons which are all available through XBMC from the start. There are other problems beside the ones I've already mention, but as I said, I don't wanna write 1000 words with all the problems, inconvenience and disadvantages it would have if this column is present or even how bad idea a "Unofficial Addon Installer" might end to be.

I don't think that a further breakdown of categories would work that well, which is why I suggested tags instead. The reason for this is that many of the addons handle multiple functions, and there would be too much overlap to separate them into separate categories. For example the CNN addon is just News, but the BBC iPlayer addon is News, TV, and Film.

You might want to leave the tags/further sub-categorization for a later date. Just get it set up for now and we'll deal with this when its absence becomes a problem.


BTW: When you make a post stating that you've updated the wiki page, please could you paste a link to that page into the post as well. Thanks

The problem here is that when you say tag I think of a Tag, no a bunch of "Tags", that to me end more being a description or description of functions of the addon.

For the example of the BBC iPlayer, what would you put in the description then? "Quote tag"?


The link, zip ideas are good, but it isn't just making things fit or as small as possible, having a 20 column table in a fixed width is quite unpleasant, besides not all people uses/have 1080p screens.


I'm insisting in discussing this things first as thorough as possible because is much easier to try and get as many things establish from the beginning than moving/changing 1000 lines of code.

[procrastinator]

All good points, and well made!

I can say that I'm happy with the wiki page layout as it is then! Sorry to have dragged out the discussion for so long, but as you've said, it is good to discuss it properly before doing it. So thanks for indulging me!

Forget the tags and further sub-categorization. It's definitely not immediately important, and it remains to be seen whether it ever will be.

Thanks for putting so much into this. It's looking good.

[Jay_M]

I have nothing against with you criticizing or having a different opinion, im all for it, they made me search and learn more things as I had and I'm looking into XBMC code, but they don't seem to be based in an understanding on how things works or how they are structured. You refer to what the devs do but don't seem to understand what is it. Therefore your reasons are wrong.

There is a Weather tag in the addon browser, I'll leave it to you to learn how to "see it", acces to it.

If you just take a moment and analyze the wiki and browser for just a second, you might be able to see that I didn't change any category and they fully match the ones in the browser. You will see that every subcategory of Information on the wiki corresponds with the browser, the only difference that instead of putting the "information" (which is the "category" of the addons as I understand) at the back of the naming and leave them all separated I group them under it, giving them more coherency and making it easy to identify the purpose/function (category) of the addon. So users will be able to search and understand more easily what they are looking for.

Addon browser I suppose is organized by what you refer as XML tags, do you happen to know wich are does XML tags? Because I suspect you don't, as you don't know the addon categories in reality, I'm not claiming to know them, been searching the XBMC code, but can't find were is any information contained in the addon.xml linked to the browser tags.

Also, please stop referring to de devs and think for yourself, they do what they can as best as they can, this doesn't mean it's the best it can be done. I for one think the categories in browser are pretty crappy, they don't contain any solid description into what they are, I guess Information or Addon is a clue, next to movie, music and so on, but to me they are the bare minimum, and grouping the categories like I did is way easier to understand/find the addons.

New categories can be always added to the wiki, the wiki can always be changed, that has nothing to do with maintainability, solid structure and categories have to do with maintainability and that's what I'm trying to do.

Good Luck

[KiSUAN]

Half the way through official skins, it's probing to be tough, gonna take some time. Made some changes to page description also List of XBMC Addons

[stoli]

Half the way through official skins, it's probing to be tough, gonna take some time. Made some changes to page description also List of XBMC Addons

I for one think you're doing a great job. If you need assistance, just send me a pm.

I have to wonder though it this should lead to the possibility of an individual wiki entry for each addon. You really cannot convey much information in the table and there is rarely and individual entry in the forums that fully describes an addon...

Good Work!

[KiSUAN]

Several people already enter addons and work is slow but we are getting there.

Just drop by to say I added a "System" column (suggested by malte) and "Other" to mark if there's any compatibility issue or requirement for the addon to work properly.

http://wiki.xbmc.org/index.php?title=Lis...BMC_Addons

[brianewing]

Big thanks to KiSUAN and everyone else who has contributed to the wiki page. This almost exactly what I was talking about.

The only thing we, myself included, need to do is beef up the descriptions as we add entries. Don't just cut and paste the description from the dev. These guys and gals do an amazing job creating great tools for XBMC but sometimes they don't provide enough info about what it is. That's where we end users should come in.

And finally big, big thanks to me for coming up with such a good idea. I promise to continue contributing to this community with the same minimal effort. (Please read this as clearly the joke it is.)

[Raphael Barros]

It would be great if there were some video showing how the addon works. Sometimes, just with the description, the final user won't visualize the addon's potential.

I suggest also a pontuation score. So people can choose between two similar addon. 5 stars, 4 stars, and so on.

I don't know, it's just ideas...

Cheers!

[DonJ]

We've created wiki pages for all add-ons which are in the Eden-pre repo (the pages are automatically updated/created from the repo): http://wiki.xbmc.org/index.php?title=Cat...ll_add-ons

Expect more work on this but would be great if some people chip in and add content to the pages.

[DonJ]

Some further progress has been made on the wiki.

The sub-categories on http://wiki.xbmc.org/index.php?title=Category:Add-ons are very useful.