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A Better Vim Plugin Site

Posted by Benjamin Hoffstein

Vim is a popular text editor with a very large community and thousands of available plugins.  Unfortunately, the central clearinghouse for these plugins -- http://www.vim.org/scripts/index.php -- is extremely basic and lacks many useful features such as user reviews, searchable metadata, social features, etc.

The users of Vim can benefit greatly from a community website more akin to Mozilla's add-on site for Firefox (https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/).  In particular, the following features of Mozilla's site would directly translate into a potential Vim plugin site:

  • "Reviews" section allows users to rate each plugin (on a 1 to 5 star scale) and add comments
  • "Categories" drop-down allows users to browse plugins in many different categories and see the most popular in each
  • Screenshots are provided for most plugins and hosted on Mozilla's site instead of having to be linked externally via <img> tabs
  • "Share This" button allows one-click posting to Facebook, Delicious, etc.
  • "Collections" (https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/collections/) allow users to create custom bundles of plugins either for sharing or backing up their own configuration
  • "Advanced Search" allows users to search by keyword, type, version, last updated, etc.
  • "Source Code License" section allows plugin authors to specify a particular license for their contribution

Some additional features that would be nice but not essential:

  • "Browse source" function to allow users to see the source code before downloading
  • "Theme browser" to preview any color schemes on a simulated Vim screen before downloading
  • User-assigned tags to provide additional metadata for each plugin
  • More sophisticated statistics on how many times the plugin was downloaded on a particular day, within the past month, etc.

If implemented, this solution will help many thousands of Vim users find, download, and share useful plugins.  Also, since nearly all of the features listed are applicable to any sort of software plugin site, it could serve as an excellent framework above and beyond what is useful for Vim.

PLEDGES

ChallengePost does not guarantee pledges will be collectable. Successful solvers who identify pre-existing solutions will not receive cash, but their profiles will reflect their success and how many people they helped.

INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY

Will remain with whoever successfully solves the challenge.

Judging

Will be performed by Benjamin Hoffstein.

Solutions (0)

Questions and Suggestions (1)

  • I'm considering taking up this challenge and have two questions:

    1. What are the judging criteria? Is finishing the first set of bullet points enough? Must the site be hosted? When exactly is this project considered "done"?
    2. What is the buyin from vim.org? Have they expressed an interest in adopting a new scripts system, or would this be an independent and competing marketplace?

    In short, I guess, I don't see an explicit definition of success for this project. I understand (and share!) the need for a better script system, but I don't see the specific, measurable goals for a good project.

    Question from Peter Harkins 4 months, 3 weeks ago

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