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wpsharks / comment-mail

A WordPress plugin enabling email subscriptions for comments.
http://comment-mail.com
GNU General Public License v3.0
8 stars 3 forks source link

Feature Request: Wizard to walk through initial configuration #283

Open kristineds opened 8 years ago

kristineds commented 8 years ago

Referencing: https://wordpress.org/support/topic/works-a-bit-complicated?replies=4#post-8529649

It would be nice if Comment Mail would introduce a wizard to walk through site owners with the suggested initial configuration for the plugin. This could potentially resolve the problem with the drop down options feeling a bit overwhelming.

Reedyseth commented 8 years ago

It would be nice if Comment Mail would introduce a wizard to walk through site owners with the suggested initial configuration for the plugin.

Do you mean like the one that Yoast SEO uses? I've seen that wizard in some other plugins @jaswsinc @raamdev Correct me if I am wrong, but I thing wordpress has something built in for that :smile_cat:

kristineds commented 8 years ago

@reedyseth I'm not familiar with the wizard from Yoast SEO but I will look into that. Thanks

@raamdev @jaswsinc As part of this work, maybe it will be more beneficial to site owners if we enable ALL recommended settings for Comment Mail by default, i.e. When a site owner first install Comment Mail, the plugin is automatically enabled (including all our recommended settings). In that way, it feels less complicated and overwhelming for users. Should be similar to what Comet Cache has. Just install it, and you're done!

We could still build the wizard guide to explain to the site owners on what settings were enabled (by default) and how they could configure it. Thoughts? :smile:

raamdev commented 8 years ago

maybe it will be more beneficial to site owners if we enable ALL recommended settings for Comment Mail by default,

The problem with that is Comment Mail affects the front-end of the site: it modifies the comment reply form to add subscription options. A site with a lot of visitors might have people using that new option immediately, before the site owner even gets a chance to properly configure it to their liking. That's why it's important to have the plugin disabled by default when you activate it. That gives you (the site owner) the opportunity to explore the plugin options, read the inline documentation, and set things up the way you want. Then, when you're ready you can enable the Comment Mail functionality on your site.

Comet Cache is not enabled by default when you activate it. You still need to visit the plugin options and activate it. (If you previously had Comet Cache installed and enabled, then whenever you upgrade or reinstall it will read those existing options in the database and re-apply them, so you might see Comet Cache enabled "automatically" when activating it.)

I'm not familiar with the wizard from Yoast SEO but I will look into that.

I also suggest looking at WooCommerce. I believe that has a wizard too. Whatever we do, we should try to stay as close to WordPress Core functionality as possible. I believe WordPress has little popup bubbles that can bring attention to sections of your plugin the first time you load it. I'm not sure if that would be sufficient for what we need, but it's worth looking into.

Another thing to keep in mind: A lot of the need for a wizard can be minimized by rethinking how the options are currently laid out. What's the 20% of options that most site owners need 80% of the time when installing Comment Mail for the first time? If we can make that 20% more user-friendly and easier to review, we solve a lot of problems right there.