SmashingMagazine has a great article that covers some tips on how WordPress plugin authors can create better readme.txt files. While the code within the plugin is important, the readme.txt file is what users are going to encounter first. It’s the means by which we discover plugins within the repository so it’s important that relevant information be written within the file or else you’ll end up with no one using the plugin. I’m happy to see that amongst their tutorial, they included how to add a changelog which is still something many plugin authors are failing to do. Speaking of changelogs, plugin authors should write them in such a way that the latest version appears at the top of the file and not at the bottom. Too much scrolling is a bad thing!
Tips On Creating A Good Plugin Readme.txt File
Category: WordPress
2
2 responses to “Tips On Creating A Good Plugin Readme.txt File”
-
-
I find some Plugin users, including myself, simply ignore the readme.txt which is fine for basic Plugins, I suspect if there were an interface for viewing the readme.txt within the Plugin page it would help cut down on unnecessary enquiries.
Also, some plugins that work with Changelogs in these files (the excellent Changelogger, for one), expect latest-first type of information in order to function properly.