[Mediawiki-l] Extension manager

[Steve Sanbeg]

On Thu, 07 Jun 2007 21:49:26 -0600, Kasimir Gabert wrote:

> Are there any talks of implementing an extension manager and a proper
> extension repository?  Something that will allow new versions to be
> detected, downloaded, UPGRADE files to be displayed, etc all from one
> location?  Something that could also allow enabling, disabling,
> installing, and uninstalling extensions?
> 
> I would be willing to work on one if there is a demand.
> 
> Kasimir

It does sound like an interesting idea.

There is an experimental script in the maintenance directory to help
download an install extensions.

I'm not sure how well upgrading would work in some cases, since the
extension interfaces tend to evolve.  I'd be cautious about running new
extensions on an old wiki.  

But maybe if the install.settings specified which versions the extension
would work on, so you could at least getting a warning when trying to
install something that's known not to work; maybe even "This will work
here, but you'd also get feature X if you upgraded to MediaWiki Y".  But
an easier way to correlate extension upgrades with the base upgrade would
be nice.

I think it'd be useful to bundle a set of known stable extensions
(i.e. the ones installed on Wikimedia projects) with the release.