Inconsistent plugin details modal section order

[meszarosrob]

Currently, when viewing plugin details without the FAIR plugin activated, sections in the modal always appear in a consistent order:

• Description
• Installation
• Changelog
• ...

This order is the same across all plugins.

Screenshot

However, with the FAIR plugin activated, the section order differs and may vary by plugin.

Screenshots

It appears the sections are rendered in the order they appear in the Metadata Document without additional sorting.

While it's a small detail, matching the default section order would provide a more consistent user experience.

[afragen]

If you are implying that FAIR somehow rearranges the tab order you should probably look at the same plugin when the FAIR plugin is active vs when it is not.

You can see when the FAIR plugin is active as the modal has other differences. However, the tab order is the same. FWIW the images are from 2 distinct sites.

I'm pretty sure the issue is with the plugin's readme.txt file, which are parsed by the dotorg class-parser.php.

If the order is truly concerning, perhaps an issue/PR to the class-parser.php is more appropriate.

[meszarosrob]

If you are implying that FAIR somehow rearranges the tab order you should probably look at the same plugin when the FAIR plugin is active vs when it is not.

You can see when the FAIR plugin is active as the modal has other differences. However, the tab order is the same. FWIW the images are from 2 distinct sites.

@afragen I can share my findings and the behavior I'm experiencing.

I'll add a recording from my local installation: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oor6HfsRrxM, but I was also able to reproduce this using WordPress Playground:

1. Start a playground with the network active.
2. Go to "Add Plugins" and search for bbPress.
3. Click on "More Details" and check the tab order.

Then:

1. Install and activate the FAIR plugin from https://github.com/fairpm/fair-plugin/releases/tag/1.0.0
2. Go to "Add Plugins" and search for bbPress again.
3. Click on "More Details" and check the tab order.

---

As for the other case, when a plugin is searched by a did:plc:

Based on my understanding, there could be many repository implementations, and the Mini FAIR Repo that uses Git Updater (which has its own readme parser) is just one of them.

These repositories could return the sections (specification.md, ext-wp.md) in any order they wish, and currently, I haven't seen it normalized in the plugin. This is why the ordering happens in two places in the PR #283.

For example, in the screenshot I added in the issue description, I'm using a repository that serves the Metadata Document but doesn't use Git Updater at all.

---

Besides this, I don't have any extra information to add. If this is not something you or others can reproduce, or if it’s not something that should be dealt with in the FAIR plugin, then that’s perfectly fine with me.

[afragen]

@meszarosrob I can reproduce this issue with other plugins too. Clearly there's something that results in the current order, or lack thereof.

I didn't express myself well in noting that you may have used 2 different readme.txt files in the example and this could be confusing. Especially as I think it may have something to do with the formatting of the individual file.

While I don't think it's an actual bug as I don't know that the modal tabs are supposed to be in a specific order, it's certainly preferable.

I do appreciate you bringing attention to it.

[meszarosrob]

While I don't think it's an actual bug as I don't know that the modal tabs are supposed to be in a specific order, it's certainly preferable.

Sure. We are in agreement here, all I said:

While it's a small detail, matching the default section order would provide a more consistent user experience [when switching to FAIR].

[afragen]

@meszarosrob after looking at your video I’m concerned there’s an actual bug in FAIR. I’ll look closer as fixing it would certainly be better long term than simply fixing the results.

[meszarosrob]

I’ll look closer as fixing it would certainly be better long term than simply fixing the results.

@afragen based on what I saw, the section order is different when I look at the API result from https://api.wordpress.org/plugins/info/1.2/?action=plugin_information&request[slug]=bbpress&request[locale]=en_US&request[wp_version]=6.8 compared to the one returned by AspireCloud at https://api.aspirecloud.net/plugins/info/1.2/?action=plugin_information&request[slug]=bbpress&request[locale]=en_US&request[wp_version]=6.8&_fair=1.0.0.

This is what I also noted in the PR, together with the reason why I don't think it would be sufficient to fix it on the AspireCloud side alone.

The section order differs between api.wordpress.org and api.aspirecloud.net, and while this could be resolved on the AspireCloud side, the default repo domain can be changed, so I chose to "normalize" the returned details.

Curious to hear what else you can find.

[afragen]

I found the issue is how AsprireCloud returns the results from plugins_api().

[afragen]

I agree we should create a solution for this as we cannot guarantee whatever mirror might be used won’t do something similar.