Need suggestions for plugins & plugin-list home

pnedev

I personally didn’t get the reason why the plugins location was changed in the first place.
If it is because of the mobile version then it doesn’t look good enough reason to me.

The place prior v7.6 - %Notepad++InstallFolder% seems the best location in my opinion.

All Notepad++ users are used to it.
There are no problems with the permissions and who has the right to install plugins.
All executables have the same location as it should be.
One can have both x86 and x64 Notepad++ and plugins versions.
On uninstall/re-install only the user config data is preserved.
Notepad++ ‘parts’ are not scattered around in different places.

PeterJones

If I’ve understood the history correctly:

You wanted to make a UWP-compatible version
The first attempt got people to complain because it was asking for admin privileges anytime anyone wanted to install/upgrade a plugin
You tried moving to %ProgramData% to avoid the admin-request
When it moved there, something/someone complained because they needed a protected environment (I never quite understood the previous posts, whether it was because admins wanted to restrict their users from installing plugins without admin privilege, or whether it was because the UWP required all aspects that it installed to be in a protected directory), so you tried to lock down the ProgramData subdirectory to make it secure
That didn’t work well either.

There may be something I don’t understand about the UWP restrictions, but I thought UWP allowed the plugins in the install directory. If not, feel free to tell me I’m wrong.

Assuming that’s all true: If the end goal is to make plugin installation as secure as notepad++ main installation and compatible with UWP, then I don’t see a good reason for plugins to be anywhere but in the NPP-install-directory, like they were originally. If people who are in controlled IT departments want to install plugins, they’ll have to go through IT, just like they have to in order to install NPP itself; if people have admin privileges themselves, they’ll just have to say “ok” a couple more times than they used to. If people want to install a non-UWP install in a non-ProgramFiles directory, they can install to a directory they have default write-access to, and get the benefits of an installed copy without the difficulty of Windows-admin-permissions. If people don’t want that, they can use the portable.

If there was another goal I had missed – trying to get rid of the old-style installs, and only provide downloads for UWP or for portable-zip – I’ll be disappointed, because I don’t get UWP when I can avoid it, and I’d prefer to have an installed-but-not UWP option. If it comes to it, I’ll just do all-portable; I’m just hoping it doesn’t come to that.

(I also agree with @pndev’s enumeration of benefits)

donho

@pnedev @PeterJones
Got your point, thank you.
The reason to move out plugins from their old home is an attempt to be compatible with UWP application, since it could be the only format in the Microsoft Windows’ future version. UWP application sits in a container (a folder) in which it’s immutable.

Here’s the short history for the plugins folder’s change:
In 7.6 plugins home was changed to %LocalAppData%\Notepad++\plugins\ but because installed plugins cannot be shared, it has been changed again in 7.6.1 (and 7.6.2) to set to %ProgramData%\Notepad++\plugins\. But currently there are some problems due to security policy in some (or the most of?) companies.

If the end goal is to make plugin installation as secure as notepad++ main installation and compatible with UWP

What I was aiming to is find a way for both mode (normal installation package and UWP app) to use Plugins Admin, ie. to be able to install/update/remove plugins. But obviously, it’s impossible.

@Meta-Chuh

if you exclude requests from others and just take your own findings:
are there usage or coding reasons from you, that makes the location %ProgramData% not such a good place for yourself ?

It’s not my policy to exclude requests from others. I’m trying to find a good compromise for all Notepad++ usages (individuals/schools/enterprise etc…), the %ProgramData% was a good option to me without considering the security policy in companies. It seems a bad choice right now after complains of people.

Meta Chuh

@donho

the %ProgramData% was a good option to me without considering the security policy in companies. It seems a bad choice right now after complains of people.

did you get more mails about that than requests here at the community ?
(i ask because we had very few requests about this here at the community, compared to other topics or issues.)

It’s not my policy to exclude requests from others

that i know, and i also respect that some of the requests take more time than others.
the emphasis was in wanting to know your own findings.
i apologize if that question sounded different in english, or if it offended you that i asked it in the first place.

btw: i also would not mind to regress to the state where everything was in %InstallFolder% as @pnedev suggested, as we seem to be prepared to support all users for the next change.

one request: please don’t forget that many of us here are the ones that answer users questions on daily base, so please check the community user’s history before addressing a community member directly in a non positive way. we recently lost our core supporter, and there’s an unconfirmed probability that he quit due to a certain post, after weeks of him working his a… off to support everyone through recent changes

dinkumoil

@donho

Instead of simply asking the community for suggestions for another change of plugins and plugin-list storage locations you should define a list of goals you want to achieve with such a change. Otherwise this discussion ends up with a lot of solely personal-opinion-based suggestions which is not helpful.

Paulo J. F. Martins

The post made by @pnedev puts it in the most simple and objective way possible.

"The place prior v7.6 - %Notepad++InstallFolder% seems the best location in my opinion.

All Notepad++ users are used to it.
There are no problems with the permissions and who has the right to install plugins.
All executables have the same location as it should be.
One can have both x86 and x64 Notepad++ and plugins versions.
On uninstall/re-install only the user config data is preserved.
Notepad++ ’parts’ are not scattered around in different places."

Better than this is absolutely impossible.
No problems with permissions, all the executables in one place, x86 and x64 can coexist, etc.

Just one thing missing: each plugin is installed only once, at least within each architecture.
If users are allowed to install plugins we could end up with the same plugin being installed as many times as the number of users who use that machine.

Meta Chuh

@donho @pnedev @Paulo-J.-F.-Martins @dinkumoil @PeterJones and all:

if the plugins go back to %Notepad++InstallFolder%\plugins
will they be using the new structure plugins\PluginName\PluginName.dll
or plugin\PluginName.dll as it was in the old versions ?

i’d prefer to keep the new “one extra subfolder per plugin” structure, as it seems to be more cleaned up, and most of the main stream plugins seem to work with that structure.

i also appreciate anyone’s opinion, testing results, and possible caveats, about how the reimplementing of plugins to %Notepad++InstallFolder%\plugins should look like, to prepare us all with the same knowledge for the upcoming support.

pnedev

@Meta-Chuh ,

I agree with you about the extra sub-folder per plugin - this keeps all single plugin’s binary data in one place which makes handling easier and reduces confusion.

donho

@dinkumoil said:

Instead of simply asking the community for suggestions for another change of plugins and plugin-list storage locations you should define a list of goals you want to achieve with such a change. Otherwise this discussion ends up with a lot of solely personal-opinion-based suggestions which is not helpful.

After the 7.6.2 I have seen the security impact from some companies and EU-FOSSA hackers’ reports. I agree with your viewpoint (f**k UWP and get it right) finally. This thread is to make sure there’s no other way.

donho

Thank you for all your suggestions!
Let’s talk about this issue here now:
https://notepad-plus-plus.org/community/topic/16996/new-plugins-home-round-2