[development] 3rd party sites/all/plugins

[Aaron Winborn]

I'm in favor going forward of using sites/all/plugins for third party 
plugins. First, it's a centralized location, and the convention is being 
adopted throughout contrib, and even core 
(http://drupal.org/node/315100). Secondly, as you note, it discourages 
the practice of directly modifying a module directory structure. 
Thirdly, it allows for drupal_get_path('plugins', 'foo'), if a foo.info 
file exists (i.e., /sites/all/plugins/foo/foo.info).

Aaron

Simon Hobbs wrote:
> Hiya
>
> Is there best practice for 3rd party plugins?
>
> Recently a tiny site was upgraded, the fckeditor module was updated
> but the dev didn't re-add fckeditor. The owner didn't notice for ages
> and eventually I have to work backwards through backups to make sure I
> get the right (possibly customized) package.
>
> So I've started creating a sites/all/plugins folder for all the
> fckeditors / swfobject / jqueryplugins / pdfwriters / etc that I need
> for a job. I then use symlinks, so in the scramble the fix is simple.
>
> It's nice too I can put different versions of tools side by side, and
> the symlink just points to the desired one.
>
> In theory it would be great if modules expected a plugin folder.
>
> For non-professionals we put them under duress with install
> instructions that tell them to clutter their modules with plugins,
> making upgrades harder for them, and I think we send the message that
> altering modules is ok.
>
> Thoughts or guidance?
>
> Thanks
> Simon Hobbs / sime
>   


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Aaron Winborn

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