richtabor
Installing plugins before importing demo content (UX related)
Hey Rich,
I've been having this dilemma and i'd appreciate your stand on this, whenever you have the time (i know you're super busy).
From a user experience pov, i believe the plugin installation step should be after importing the demo content, in particular when dealing with a multi-demo packed theme.
Considering for example 2 demos, and they each use different plugins. If plugin install step is displayed before the demo import step, i believe they wouldn't be relevant to their respective demo. It would become a messy list of say 10 plugins that the user has no idea which one goes where into the demo he will choose to install.
I would propose something like, moving the demo import step after theme activation step and then after a demo was selected, a list with its dependant plugins to be shown (with the possibility of locked & mandatory plugins), along with the detailed type of content.
What do you think, does this make sense to you?
PS: Merlin looks and feels amazing. I'm currently designing a theme and can't wait to start coding so i can work with it.
Hi @hogash although this may work for some it may not for others, for instance in many cases the plugin needs to be already installed and activated to be able to do import of content related to that plugin. An example of that would be Revolution Slider plugin or other sliders, or Essential Grid plugin, etc, . In which case if the plugin is not already active the PHP classes used to call upon the slider's importer will not be available, hence this will not work. The only way it would work is if the "merlin_after_all_import" hook can be run after the step when the plugins are imported and activated.
@aurora-hq indeed, most definitely plugins need to be installed before the demo content (it also involves sql tables, and as you mentioned, hooks). So technically, that's the way to go, no doubts.
I was mostly referring as a usability improvement, just modifying the user interface. To display the demo import step first, and after the demo was chosen (or not, because it's optional), its dependencies to be displayed as well, but installed into the same order, plugin first, demo content afterwards.
I see what you mean, choosing a demo as a first step but not importing it (yet), yes I like this idea, definitely it will allow for more flexibility and resolve the issue of needlessly installing plugins that aren't required for a specific demo.
Hi @hogash I think it's possible to do that. there is a theme named woostify and it has free version. if you check the demo import process of it you can see that's exactly what you're looking for. it first shows the demos and after selecting one of them it would redirect you to dependency installation. The whole process of woostify theme demo import is powered by Merlin Wp and the option you need. look at his code to see how he did it.
