Shiny Updates replaces The Bleak Screen of Sadness™ (example) with a simpler and more straight forward experience when installing, updating, and deleting plugins and themes. Progress updates for these actions don’t add a benefit, but disrupt users workflows. Shiny Updates deals with these details behind the scenes, maintaining the context of the triggered actions and leaving users with clear actions and results.

This caters to two core principles of WordPress, designing for the majority, and striving for simplicity. Users don’t really care about the internal process of installing or updating themes and plugins. Listing out these technical steps for them is unnecessary at best. With Shiny Updates these actions also don’t require a page reload anymore which creates a simpler workflow without context changes and lets users achieve their goals of an enhanced WordPress experience quicker.

Current status

Meetings

Tuesday, 20:00 UTC in #feature-shinyupdates.

Testing

We need help testing the user flows! Please install the Shiny Updates plugin, run the tests below, and share your feedback in the #feature-shinyupdates channel in Slack or create an issue on GitHub.

Plugin Tests

1. Search for a new plugin and install it.
2. In a plugin card, click ‘More details’ and install it from the modal.
3. Activate the plugin.
4. If you have any plugins that need updating, update them. If you don’t have any that need updating, you can edit the plugin and change the version number to something older. Once saved, this plugin will show as needing an update.
5. In a plugin row that needs updating, click ‘View details’ and update it from the modal.
6. Delete a plugin you’ve already installed.
7. Bulk Actions – If you have several plugins that need updating or deleting, you can try the bulk actions as well. Just select several plugins, then from the dropdown at the top select your action and ‘Apply’ it.
8. If you have a multisite installation, go through the checklist in the network admin.
9. Share your feedback. Or if you found a bug, create an issue on GitHub.

Theme Tests

1. Search for a new theme and install it.
2. Preview a different theme and install it from the preview.
3. Activate the theme.
4. If you have any themes that need updating, update them. If you don’t have any that need updating, you can edit the theme and change the version number to something older. Once saved, this theme will show as needing an update.
5. Delete a theme you’ve already installed.
6. If you have a multisite installation, go through the checklist in the network admin.
7. Share your feedback. Or if you found a bug, create an issue on GitHub.

Update core

1. If you have any themes or plugins that need updating, update them. If you don’t have any that need updating, you can edit the them and change the version number to something older. Once saved, they will show as needing an update.
2. Update one specific item, a theme or a plugin.
3. Try updating all items in the table.
4. Share your feedback. Or if you found a bug, create an issue on GitHub.

Questions

1. What were the noticeable differences in the new install/update/activate/delete process compared to the old one without Shiny Updates?
2. How did installing and activating a plugin or theme go? Was it difficult or easy? Was it faster or slower than expected?
3. Do you have any further comments or suggestions?

Participants

• @obenland
• @adamsilverstein
• @mapk
• @swissspidy
• @michaelarestad
• @paaljoachim
• @j-falk
• @ethitter
• @ryelle

Visual Records

Records were aggregated and posted on Make/Flow, including user tests.

Links

• GitHub repository
• Plugin Directory page
• Make/Core updates