How do i download plugins?

[Michael_]

Happy new year fellas!

[CoffeeCake]

28 minutes ago, Michael_ said:

Why not simply allow downloads parallel to the "idiot install"?
This way there would be no tradeoff but even a gain.

It's a good question, and I've asked it myself when the change appeared with 4.5.

My guess is that it boils down to people who lose their way, purchase resources, and then redistribute those resources to others to make them widely available or resell them elsewhere.

[Michael_]

1 hour ago, Paul E. said:

My guess is that it boils down to people who lose their way, purchase resources, and then redistribute those resources to others to make them widely available or resell them elsewhere.

Well you cant stop that anyway.

And if you are concerned about "basic users" generating problems you could simply make it so it can be turned on/off by using constants.php for example.
(So basic users would not even be able to download plugins.)

Just as a suggestion.
I would love to see that in a future version. 🙂

[Dean_]

I see it pretty simple now.

For years, we've asked for some sort of Wordpress like feature, drag and drop, auto update within acp, plugins within acp. We now have it and realise we don't like it much after being used to IP.Board/IPB/IPS for years. But, we're now stuck with it.

If you want addons without being tied to ACP, then ask the developer for the files, so you can keep a copy. This is what IPS suggest doing, and they have no intension of taking that feature away from us.

Happy New Year by the way!!

[AlexWebsites]

On 12/28/2020 at 10:17 AM, bfarber said:

The tar/xml files are not retained. They are install files and are used to install the resources, and then are removed.

It is generally against license agreements to purchase a plugin or application and use it on more than one site. If the author of a resource does allow this, then you may be able to reach out to them and ask them for a copy of the resource once you've purchased it to install on another site. If you are speaking of test sites specifically, we have a special -TESTINSTALL key that you can use on your test site which will give you access to your resources purchased for your live site for a test installation.

So once you install it from the ACP, it will not be available in the ACP of another installation you own and are signed in as? 

If that's the case, this is not good news for multiple IPS license holders. You should then introduce some sort of multi-site purchase option or functionality for devs to allow or not.

[balazsp]

 

Quote

It is generally against license agreements to purchase a plugin or application and use it on more than one site. If the author of a resource does allow this, then you may be able to reach out to them and ask them for a copy of the resource once you've purchased it to install on another site. If you are speaking of test sites specifically, we have a special -TESTINSTALL key that you can use on your test site which will give you access to your resources purchased for your live site for a test installation.

 

I have been with IPB since around 2002 and I have a large, prod forum with a site built around it and have an internal test site that is used for development and testing (with the _TESTINSTALL key). 

Since the latter cannot be accessed via the internet, I cannot even log on to the MP from my dev site to install and test plugins before deploying them in production.

@bfarberCan you please advise how I can test the plugins I purchase (without them possibly messing up the prod env) before rolling out in prod? Please don't send me to the individual developers, I have been waiting for replies and the xml install files for weeks now. 

/Also, IMHO testing first in production is never good, I already had to restore DB from backup once./ 

If I could install from MP just by using my creds only and not the mandatory 'is the community accessible from internet by invision' checks, that would be a great solution too.

Thank you in advance. 

[CoffeeCake]

12 hours ago, balazsp said:

Since the latter cannot be accessed via the internet, I cannot even log on to the MP from my dev site to install and test plugins before deploying them in production.

To do what you're trying to achieve, as of 4.5 your test install will need to be internet accessible. IPS will need to be able to connect to your install to complete the Marketplace login.

Your dev install (installed at localhost) does not need a key. You only need to use the -TESTINSTALL key on the internet accessible test install.

Testing things before deploying them in production is important, however with this change, the only supported way to do what you're trying to achieve is to maintain an internet accessible test installation, or to not rely on Marketplace and instead obtain the needed files from developers directly.

[balazsp]

11 hours ago, Paul E. said:

To do what you're trying to achieve, as of 4.5 your test install will need to be internet accessible. IPS will need to be able to connect to your install to complete the Marketplace login.

Your dev install (installed at localhost) does not need a key. You only need to use the -TESTINSTALL key on the internet accessible test install.

Testing things before deploying them in production is important, however with this change, the only supported way to do what you're trying to achieve is to maintain an internet accessible test installation, or to not rely on Marketplace and instead obtain the needed files from developers directly.

Thank you Paul. 

/I am trying to swallow how much more overhead work it is going to generate when doing any dev work that involves MP./

IMO that does not really work when I have a dynamic IP at home, and the locally managed domainname on the test VM is the same as my prod.
How is IPS going to validate my test install? By IP/public domainname/domain configured in ACP? How often does this check occur? Just when downloading from MP? 

Also, I am not comfortable opening up my test env to the whole internet, is there an IP list/range for IPS addresses that I can whitelist on my firewall? 

Cheers!

[bfarber]

We use AWS for our infrastructure.

https://docs.aws.amazon.com/general/latest/gr/aws-ip-ranges.html

[CoffeeCake]

14 hours ago, balazsp said:

I am not comfortable opening up my test env to the whole internet

Your test install cannot be open to the whole internet by license agreement (using the -TESTINSTALL key), so you'd need to do something like HTTP auth (though you may have to turn this off temporarily when completing the Marketplace login). Once your environment is online, it creates a token that expires after some time. You do not need a persistent two-way internet connection, however you will need to login again once the token expires.

Your URL will need to be something different from your production environment, or you'll get complaints when trying to activate the license. Perhaps something like test.example.com instead of www.example.com.

 

[balazsp]

@bfarber

Could you please confirm whether devs are allowed to send the install xmls in private if I purchased a plugin?

Thank you in advance.

 

[bfarber]

Third party developers are welcome to share their work through private exchanges if they wish to. That is up to the developer.

[balazsp]

Thank you @bfarber, but are the devs selling their plugins via the marketplace forbidden to share their xml file? (Talking about PMs here, not other private exchanges.)

 

[Daniel F]

3 minutes ago, balazsp said:

but are the devs selling their plugins via the marketplace forbidden to share their xml file?

No they're not. They can share their own applications, plugins, themes and translations wherever they want.