Plugins manager

[Daniels118]

Hello plugin developers! What you think about having a plugin manager that can help users to find and keep updated your plugins?

I'm currently working on such a thing, here is a POC:


I'm open to any suggestion!

[YGYL]

It is recommended to solve multi-language support first
Originally it was a manual translation version, but it is not good to automatically update it into an English version
It is recommended that the language files be separated out

[Daniels118]

@YGYL Do you mean you manually edited some plugins to include additional language files?

If so, this "plugin manager" could also implement support for user made translations, at the condition that the managed plugins load the strings the "standard way", i.e. using .properties files with language specific suffix. The manager could implement a text merge tool to help the user identify only the strings that have been added or changed from the previous version, and let him manually translate them, doing automatic packaging and installing. Rollback/backup support could also be implemented.

Could this meet your needs?

[Puybaret]

Don't know if you saw it, but there's already some tools and a DTD to follow updates in Sweet Home 3D. This can be also used for plug-ins, as shown in the last item of the current version of SweetHome3DUpdates.xml. Maybe it could be useful for your idea.

[YGYL]

@YGYL Do you mean you manually edited some plugins to include additional language files?

If so, this "plugin manager" could also implement support for user made translations, at the condition that the managed plugins load the strings the "standard way", i.e. using .properties files with language specific suffix. The manager could implement a text merge tool to help the user identify only the strings that have been added or changed from the previous version, and let him manually translate them, doing automatic packaging and installing. Rollback/backup support could also be implemented.

Could this meet your needs?

Yes, I translated almost all the plugins into Chinese
However, your plugin updates quickly and it doesn't come with Chinese language files.
I had to change the Chinese language file again for each new version, which wasted some time

[Daniels118]

@Puybaret
thank you for the reference, it is a good starting point and of inspiration!

@YGYL
Well, so this plugin manager will help you a lot, not only with my plugins but with all the plugins ecosystem.

[YGYL]

@Puybaret
thank you for the reference, it is a good starting point and of inspiration!

@YGYL
Well, so this plugin manager will help you a lot, not only with my plugins but with all the plugins ecosystem.

Sweet Home 3D is a software for beginners. I think the plugins should have a unified multi-language graphical interface with instructions. The ability to import plugins in bulk with one click.

[Daniels118]

Thinking better about your concerns, it would be better if you ask the plugin developers to add your language. My plugins already comes with about ten translations; I haven't added chinese just because I'm too bad in recognizing if the characters would render correctly, but if you can send me the working files it would be a pleasure for me to include them in the next releases of my plugins.

[YGYL]

Thinking better about your concerns, it would be better if you ask the plugin developers to add your language. My plugins already comes with about ten translations; I haven't added chinese just because I'm too bad in recognizing if the characters would render correctly, but if you can send me the working files it would be a pleasure for me to include them in the next releases of my plugins.

Transfer link: https://cowtransfer.com/s/1de1535d55f444 passphrase: ohb824

[Daniels118]

Hello YGYL, and thank you for your contribution [:)]
I have added the translation to the latest versions of my 3 plugins; all of them have a new baseline version, which is 3.0.
I've made just small changes to your files:

• For 3D dimension lines and Wirings I've changed the minimum required version of Pan3dView from 1.7 to 3.0 and
• I've added the translation for some new strings in the properties files;
• for Wirings the remove point modifier keys have changed from SHIFT to CTRL+SHIFT due to a conflict with the draw on ceiling modifier, and
• I have also changed the related sentence in the help because it stated to press DEL to remove points, but in fact is CTRL+SHIFT+click;
• for 3D dimension lines I've added a sentence to the help file which explains how the new drawing aid works.

All addition/changes have been automatically translated from English, please forgive me if they aren't accurate, of course you can always propose corrections.
I've seen you credited yourself on the help buttons, I've taken one step further by crediting you on the release posts on SourceForge too.