blender_manifest.toml file is missing a "location" option
Ever since extensions became the new format for addons, there's no way to define a "location" parameter in the blender_manifest.toml file, just like it was before with every legacy addon that uses the bl_info header. This is a problem in cases when a user is first trying an addon, and it has to figure out where is the addon placing its main panels or buttons. Blender now has a very extensive UI, and it can be a challenge for new users to find them when the new buttons or operators are not in a totally obvious place. Right now, as addon developers, we are forced to print an extra line in the Preferences with this "location" info, which makes the addon preferences even more convoluted and makes us use different standards and styles for such a simple piece of information missing in the blender_manifest. This is a feature request from the bug tracker, but this will probably never see the light of day 🤷♂️
6 Comments
Agree, I'm not sure why this was removed from the required fields, it was definitively useful. However, not every addon dev used it, and even then, sometimes the vocabulary used was just wrong or misleading. It wasn't a perfect solution to begin with.
The good thing however is the "official website" (aka the extension platform page for most of them) is accessible and often shows all the information you need and even more: detailed usage guide, where is the GUI, what it does, ... All illustrated with pictures or even videos, which is by far is better at showing where to go than words.
But the downside of this is, firstly it's also not mandatory to provide all that information to get approved on the platform, and secondly you have to open the addon's web page to get that information.
If Blender was able to show that by itself, that would spare some clicks, but I suspect it would also be heavier to perform and including a web browser in a 3DCC software doesn't sound reasonable.
Yeah, all good, but then every developer is forced to maintain a webpage with eyecandy and long explanations. This doesn't solve the underlying issue: we need a simple and fast way to tell where the addon is expecting to show its main UI, right at installation time. This shouldn't become even more trouble for the user and developers. And speaking of developers, we have many types of them, there are the ones who are selling, who will not necessarily publish to the extensions platform, there are the ones who are independent developers not interested in publishing an "official" addon, but just sharing with a bunch of users or friends, there are in-house devs, etc. With the eyecandy website solution, we are forcing everyone to communicate through that instead of just providing an optional parameter to the manifest. It shouldn't be enforced, and when it isn't used, it would just simply disappear from the Preferences. So simple to implement, and here we are, debating this basic stuff...
I feel like you read my message as meaning the addon's official website should be "forded" onto the developers or that it should replace the location field in Blender, and that everybody should publish on the official extensions platform?
But I didn't write anything like that, nor was I " debating this basic stuff ". In fact, I literally started my comment by "agree", and I added material about the issue: We could do more things overall to make addons more accessible.
I'm sorry man. I didn't mean any offense. I'm just discussing the topic here. The point I wanted to make is that being able to upload official documentation doesn't actually substitute for this feature or solve the problem of it being removed, downgrading our software. This feature served a good purpose, and it served very well, despite some devs misusing it. I make this point because you described what Blender devs would argue when supporting the idea of removing that feature. What I mean by "debating basic stuff" is that a lot of times Blender developers remove stuff that was actually very useful, and sometimes without deeper consideration, forcing us to come to sites like this to "debate it" pointlessly, making us waste our time, knowing very well that it will most likely be buried forever, not even making it into a mere ToDo list. I have commented above on several examples of users that will not find a solution to this problem, because in practice, they are forced to publish official documentation. So my argument is that this is not a real solution. Something as simple as declaring one more optional item in the manifest doesn't hurt anyone and is not something that is technically difficult or complex. So yeah, I understand this may sound like frustration, but this is what happens with most things that were there doing their job and are suddenly removed. What can I say? That's not a great idea, sorry.
To be honest, I've had the same problem with addons in the "pre extension" days. Some developers are GREAT at making it easy, some are not. More than once I've had to open addon code itself in the script editor and start digging around to find the magic location.
A very simple and effective solution to the current times is simply include a screenshot of your addon, and it's location, on the website listing. The page listing allows such pics, make use of them.
Those are just rare exceptions. Most of the time the location information by far fulfilled its purpose without problems. There's no reason not to include it today 'as is'.