Opening a new front with my plugins
I've written before about my work on plugins, either to fix existing ones or create new modules entirely. Some of the new work happened to replace older options that stopped working or weren't reliable enough, while others have been designed to add some brand new functionality. While I had made a few available online already, I decided to go the full distance and release as much content as widely as possible!
There's now a main section on Interordi to link to the full set of plugins I've made available so far. This includes information and downloads on Spigot and Polymart, plus the full source code on GitHub. Five plugins are available now, with more being gradually prepared.
This might not mean much to most of you reading this, as you're players of the Creeper's Lab and don't need these files. Instead, these are for server owners, a group of people that I haven't been actively targeting until now. Since I'm already making the effort in developing these features, I thought I might as well use the opportunity to reach out to more people. This includes a new crowdfunding campaign, this time on GitHub Sponsors, which targets developers and server owners interested in supporting my work.
Now, this doesn't mean that this was a simple fire-and-forget thing. As I was telling someone else a few days ago, I tend to classify my code in three categories:
- The tools I create for myself only. These can be very unpolished, as I can easily work my way around their limitations or problems.
- Things that are shared among the staff members. While they can come with warnings about rough edges, something that's more intuitive is my goal.
- What gets published for everyone to see and use. This needs to be fully secured, as fool-proof as possible and with a solid production quality.
Moving anything forward from one level to another can be a significant effort, and often takes way longer than one would think. Most of the plugins that this post is about were in the second tier, although some were in the first; making sure that everything was easy to install and understand required some careful review work.
More in this direction will happen in the upcoming months. Do you have any thoughts on which of the tools I've mentioned over time that would be the most useful to other people? If so, please, I'd love to read about it!
– Doctacosa