After a couple of months of testings in some open beta style, the new WordPress plugins repository design is set to be the default and if you have access the plugins page on WordPress.org you can notice that the “repo” is now looking different at least.
The new plugins repository Home Page look
The new design fits into the concept of WordPress website new look, its not some breath taking design all trough but I guess the focus was on the simplicity and usability as always. Anyway, you can notice the search form present upper in the top section but its the plain search filed and its not using ajax or any kind of possible search suggestion.
So, if you mistype the desired plugins name, you can count on the fact that the search won’t be so helpful as its not improved for now.
Then the Featured plugins are listed just bellow the main top area and right after you can see beta plugins available for participation and the plugins users marked as favorited (for logged in users). We can only comments that the Home page don’t offer any special or new features worth mentioning.
Single plugins page design
Plugins pages have hit some more detailed redesign, but the first thing you’ll notice that there are no stats pages available for the respective plugins and the stats are now available for the plugins admin only. The entire section that was inside the tabs in old version like basic info, installation, etc. is now available in the detailed content form like some enhanced detailed description that is displayed on click. The overall page impression is very nice.
Plugins ratings and support forums are upper in the page and they purpose should be to bring the awareness of users regarding the overall plugins impressions so far.
The plugins developers and contributors are stored at the bottom. One of the new features is the screenshots slider as well, so if the plugin features images samples, they are now available in the slider and its somehow useful.
WordPress plugins repository search problems
What is of the most importance for the vast majority of plugin developers is the fact that the next things that plugin repository badly needs is search optimization and the search results are very bad and lots of plugins have begun changing names in order to gain more visitors.
You can notice that most popular queries will display lots of same entitled plugins witch looks really weird at least, try typing Google analytics in the plugin search form for example and you’ll get what I mean.
Share you opinion on WordPress plugins repository re-design
Anyway, there might be some other features missing after this re-design and if you do spotted something, feel free to drop the message in comments below.
