New Plugin Manager UI suggestions

I was going to report this as a feature request, but I thought it was too rambling and vague so I thought I'd post it here and get others' ideas on the new plugin manager UI.

I think the default column sizes make it look terrible, and it makes it look like I don't even want to read it and figure out what all that cut off garbage text says or means. See my attached screenshot for how it looks on my computer.

I think a JTable isn't the best way to represent those data, given that the window is so small and each plugin has so much information.

I think if someone wants to know how large a plugin download is, he could click on it and it could be showed in a Details pane. I think Category should go back to being a parent in the TreeTable. I think colored icons would be more appropriate for whether a plugin is installed or not. I think that in most cases, both the installed version and the latest version do not need to be shown.

I think there should be the following status icons, to the left of the Name:
Green - Latest version is installed
Yellow - Old version installed
Red, Grey, or no icon (my preference) - Not installed

This way, three of the columns currently in the table could be removed: Status, Latest Version, Installed Version. The latest and installed versions could be shown in a Details pane under the table.

I think Date could be removed as well, because I think you only want to see the date for plugins that you don't have the most recent version of. You might also want to see what the newest plugins are, and I think maybe some kind of filter could be used for that, or a button "Show Updated Plugins," and it would show or highlight the plugins whose modified date is more recent than the last time you pressed that button.

So in conclusion, I think the plugin list should be a tree with the category as the parent, and I think the only columns that should be shown are Name and Downloads, and maybe Date.

What does everyone else think?



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Keith Lea wrote:

>..the default column sizes make it look terrible, ..

>

It's overcrowded, isn't it?


>I think a JTable isn't the best way to represent those data, ..

>

The JTable was requested, and wished by many - me included -, as it
enables multi-column sorting, provided the sorting algorithm is stable.



>I think if someone wants to know how large a plugin download is, he could click on it and it could be showed in a Details pane. I think Category should go back to being a parent in the TreeTable. I think colored icons would be more appropriate for whether a plugin is installed or not. I think that in most cases, both the installed version and the latest version do not need to be shown.

>
Letting the user choose which column he wants to see would solve this
problem.


>I think there should be the following status icons, to the left of the Name:
>Green - Latest version is installed
>Yellow - Old version installed
>Red, Grey, or no icon (my preference) - Not installed
>

>
posted yesterday :
plugin manager : reinstate colour coding for up-to-date status.
http://www.intellij.net/tracker/idea/viewSCR?publicId=25446


>So in conclusion, I think the plugin list should be a tree with the category

>

You could request they reinstate the possibility to choose between table
and tree display mode.


Alain

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