Sublime Forum

Will the "Package Manger" become a core feature in ST2?

#1

TL;DR: Will wbond’s package manager (or a variant thereof) be implemented as a core feature of ST2 before the final release?

As I was reading these forums as I always try to do once a week, I noticed the topic named “Deprecated Addons”. In it the TS asks:

To which wbond responds with:

[quote=“wbond”]I’ve had the intention for a while to create a detail page for packages on the Community Packages list that will allow users to leave comments, in addition to some other things. This could potentially help the issue raised here.

Unfortunately I’ve run into the issue that my various obligations to work, family and the few different open source projects I run has left me with little free time to explore new functionality. Perhaps in the next month or so I can work on getting the community package site onto github so that others can contribute.[/quote]

Now let me start by saying that I have the utmost respect for the work wbond has done for this community and the ease with which we install new plugins these days, compared to a few months ago where we constantly had to clone repositories or copy/paste plugins from these forums. He deserves all the credits he gets and I hope people will use the donate button on his page to send him some money for his hard work.

Having said that. Package Manager has become pretty much a must-have for specific features that are obviously outside of the scope of the core features that make up Sublime Text 2. I don’t know many people who don’t use package manager so almost always after installing a fresh copy of ST2, the first thing people do is install the package manager.

I feel that having such a key feature of this product being developed by an outside developer who is not part of the core development team (although there is only one core developer at the moment, jon) makes this less than an ideal situation.

I believe the above quote is the main reason why the package manager should be implemented in the application itself and not be handled by a third party. I can totally understand the reasons why wbond is strapped on time, and I would do the same if I where in the same situation, I also have the greatest respect for how the package manager works in sublime, it really works as simple as it can be.

At the same time, I worry that wbond has to work with the API jon opens up for the public to work with ST2. That, plus the fact that we pay jon for his hard work, but not to wbond (unless we donate), which makes the work wbond does more of a “nice to do for the community project” and jon’s application a “they pay me, they can expect certain results project”.

All this is to say:

  • How do other people on these forums think about this?

  • How do Jon and Wbond think about this?

  • Are there any steps being taken to mitigate this problem (even if it isn’t a problem at the moment)?

  • Can we expect some big announcement before the final release of V2?*

*[size=85]with the work on the new website, and the lack of new features for the past few weeks, I suspect the final version is imminent, so I don’t expect this to happen, but it would still be nice.[/size]

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#2

I guess it’s a good idea that PM to be at least listed as a feature on the new site (among other great plugins). Because let’s face it, the editor is awesome. But with plugins is THE editor!

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#3

I’d be strongly in favour of this. Package Control is assumed to the point where practically nobody puts any effort into making their packages easy to install without it. This is a problem for those of us (mostly behind company firewalls, I think) for whom Package Control just doesn’t work, at all, ever.

If standardized package management is essential, as seems to be the case, it needs more of a support commitment than can reasonably be expected from a lone unpaid altruist.

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#4

You can get PM to work with proxies (at least the two we have where I work) by using http_proxy & https_proxy in your Package Control user settings.

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#5

@sean111 - no, it’s not that. I already have the same proxy settings there as I do for browsers. They can get to sublime.wbond.net/repositories.json fine. PC is consistently giving me

EDIT: hmm, on a hunch I tried replacing the repository_channels config entry to be http rather than https, and suddenly PC can retrieve repositories.json. Still can’t install anything, though, presumably because all the individual package URLs are https.

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#6

I also have trouble using Package Manager to update my ST2 install but I can get to sublime.wbond.net/repositories.json through the browser. Is this a setting I should set in PM config?

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#7

This questions wasn’t answered (or was it? :confused: )
Is the package manager going to be part of ST2 ? (as 2.0 was release today, kudos for that, I’m thinking in another point version. Maybe 2.1?)

Regards!

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#8

@MikeC Odd we have a very bad (calling it just bad is being generous) proxy system at my work and adding in the settings worked for me. Does your proxy deny https requests?

@alexandernst I do not know what he plans to do but I remember reading a thread from someone stating that he had mentioned leaving it a separate system so that the editor remained lightweight. Please don’t take this as the 100% answer since it wasn’t from jps.

Personally I think it should remain separate since the editor has a great included tool set and the PM isn’t very hard to install if you want to get any of the plugins.

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#9

@sean111 - no, as I said, I can get to repositories.json in a browser using HTTPS via the same proxy. My uninformed guess would be that the proxy requires authentication, and that my browsers can pick up the user credentials from my desktop session but urllib2 (or whatever PC is using for networking) can’t. But I have zero expertise in this area.

To your “the PM isn’t very hard to install” - my problem isn’t that it’s hard to install, it’s that it doesn’t work, and as things stand I have no right or reason to expect a fix.

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#10

As of now, there has not been any discussion between myself and Jon in bundling Package Control with Sublime Text. I can imagine that doing so would probably add quite a bit extra work for Jon. Mostly because I believe people would have certain expectations for support related to it. Additionally, doing light review on packages takes some time. That said, if he was interested in it, I don’t think it would be a bad thing.

I am open to getting other people involved in helping with Package Control. There have been a few people who have helped on a regular basis. Bizoo reviews a lot of pull requests and let’s people know if they are just duplicating something that already exists. Ms4py has written code and been helping on GitHub pointing users in the right direction for the next version that is in testing. There have been other users who have taken the time to write some code too.

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