Notify about new available add-ons

[nvdaes]

Is your feature request related to a problem? Please describe.

Users may want to be notified when new add-ons are available from the store.

Describe the solution you'd like

• A New add-ons tab maybe added to the store, where last compatible add-ons not cached would be presented.

• A dialog or other means, like an ui.message or a toast notification, would notify users when new add-ons are available, for example at startup or at scheduled intervals (each hour may be reasonable.

• The dialog will be the store focusing the New add-ons tab, where the description and other details, an an action to install add-ons, would be available.

  Describe alternatives you've considered

  An add-on maybe created to notify about new add-ons, but it maybe better to include this in the core adding a new tab to the store.

  Additional context

  A bot used on Mastodon, on a Feeds subgroup of the add-ons mailing list and on a spanish mailing list is used by some people to be notified about new add-ons:

• Bot repo

• Bot profile on Mastodon

[RuturajL]

This is a useful improvement and I believe a simple one. It's exciting to know what are the latest/new addons that were made available to the comunity. This way, I don't have to go in to the entire available addons list, and see what's new available.

[nvdaes]

RuturajL wrote:

This way, I don't have to go in to the entire available addons list, and see what's new available.

Perhaps, instead of creating a tab for new add-ons, a new checkbox to show just new add-ons maybe added for the Available add-ons tab. Then, when new add-ons are published, the store dialog focusing the Available add-ons tab with this checkbox selected, could be opened. Maybe an easier solution.

[nvdaes]

Another aspect to discuss would be if new add-ons should be cached. I think it would be better. Otherwise, when the store dialog is closed and reopened, the list of new add-ons will be empty until new add-ons are published.

[nvdaes]

I see that this has been triaged. I'll try to create a PR for implementation.

[seanbudd]

@nvdaes - can you go over your implementation plan first? My understanding is this will require server work for NV access to create a view for new add-ons

[nvdaes]

Sean wrote:

@nvdaes - can you go over your implementation plan first? My understanding is this will require server work for NV access to create a view for new add-ons

I have another plan: for each user, new add-ons will be different: just the difference between cached compatible add-ons and add-ons available. What do you think?

[seanbudd]

That will be reset to no add-ons every 6 hours as the cache updates, is this desired?

[nvdaes]

That will be reset to no add-ons every 6 hours as the cache updates, is this desired?

No, but we may create an additional permanent cache.

[CyrilleB79]

I'd prefer Sean's proposal, i.e. last update date being the same for all users. This provides much more interesting information, i.e. is an add-on actively being maintained?

[nvdaes]

I'd prefer Sean's proposal, i.e. last update date being the same for all users. This provides much more interesting information, i.e. is an add-on actively being maintained?

Maybe a good idea. My proposal maybe reached with an add-on if desired. Then I'll wait for Sean reply. If NV Access doesn't want to work on this, then I'll go on with my plan.

[seanbudd]

@nvdaes - we have no immediate plans to work on this, however I'd only start work if it is clear your proposed implementation is accepted by the community. I think more feedback is needed here on what the implementation should look like

[nvdaes]

@seanbudd, I prefer starting to work on my initial plan. The implementation requiring server work maybe discussed separately. I think this server implementation maybe done when it"s clearer how it should be done, for example, to show a fixed number of recent add-ons, or the add-ons published in the las week, for all channels, for example. My plan should be easier to implement, at least theoretically. I"ll start working and we can open a separate issoe for this.

[seanbudd]

@nvdaes feel free to create a prototype but be warned that it is possible it may not be accepted if the design is unpopular

[nvdaes]

I think that finally I prefer to add a new add-ons tab instead of a checkbox to show just new add-ons in the available add-ons tab, so that the tab title is better perceived. I will create a prototype requesting for feedback on the add-ons mailing list ant to people who maybe interested.

[nvdaes]

I've created a prototype in the linked pull request:

• An Available new add-ons tab is added to the store, to show new add-ons. An add-on is considered new if it was not available when NVDA was exited for the last time.
• A job configurable from NVDA's menu, Preferences, addd-on store settings panel, can be scheduled at startup opening the store to the Available new add-ons tab. Similar to add-on updates, this is enabled by default, but the job will not triggered the first time that NVDA is started with this new feature, to avoid showing all add-ons as new automatically, since old add-ons will be saved when NVDA exits.
• Updatable add-ons are not considered new add-ons.

[nvdaes]

I have thought that it's also useful to notify about new add-ons when new versionns of not installed add-ons are available. Imo the main goal of this feature is to see descriptions to decide if a new add-on should be installed. But descriptions may also be modified in new versions. I'll include this in the linked PR.