Hello, my GDevelop friends! I want to take some time to discuss the Extension Team, including our progress and achievements, as well as areas that need improvement.
First, let’s celebrate the progress we have made. There are now over 70 extensions ready for GDevelop users to start using with just a few clicks. This is amazing! Additionally, we have several new people who have begun submitting extensions, so expect to see a lot more great extensions in the near future.
Now, let’s talk about the idea of community teams. GDevelop is still experimenting with team structures, which means that our teams are quite nebulous and undefined. This method has both pros (we don’t pick a bad structure) and cons (we don’t really have a structure). Strategies on how to manage these teams have been discussed before, including here and here.
My opinion is that we DO need more structure than we have now. For instance, I have volunteered to lead the Extension Team, but I’m still not sure if I have been appointed to the position or not. I’m hoping this forum post will allow us to formulate some good ideas about team structure, document them, and put them into practice.
Regarding the process to submit extensions, I want to propose some minor changes. Trello has been great for me to jot down dozens of ideas (often in the middle of the night!). However, Trello has not proven to be a great tool to share extensions and discuss them in detail. Github issues do a much better job of those tasks. Therefore, I propose:
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Keep using Trello to document new ideas, identify who is working on what, and track the lifecycle status of each extension (i.e. “new idea”, “submitted”, “accepted”, “abandoned”)
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Create a Github issue when you are ready for your extension to be reviewed by others. I wish there was a way for extension developers to tag the issue regarding its status: “draft”, “needs reviewed”, “passed review”. Perhaps this can be done manually with large text.
Related to this process, we have identified a lack of reviews being done, which has resulted in a backlog of extensions that need to be evaluated and feedback provided before they can be accepted into GDevelop. Here are my quick thoughts on this:
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Extension creators should make it easy to review their extension. This includes providing good descriptions and instructions, and an example game that demonstrates how the extension should be used.
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Extension creators should periodically review extensions submitted by others. This doesn’t have to be a huge ordeal; we primarily need some basic testing and constructive criticism to help improve the extensions.
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Please be patient and kind.
We are mostly a bunch of volunteers who love creating gamedev tools and sharing them with the world. (Even when there are paid GDevelop developers, they should be similarly treated with respect and empathy).
That’s about all I wanted to say to get this discussion started. Please reply with your thoughts. Thanks!
