Is your feature request related to a problem? Please describe the impact that the lack of the feature requested is creating.

Headlamp's plugins were initially thought to be distributed in a vendor/builder scenario, i.e. for individuals or companies re-building Headlamp with overridden functionality via plugins. However, in desktop mode, plugins are installed by the user, who may also develop them, besides having already the plugins that ship with Headlamp Desktop. We need to define the behavior for when plugins clash.

Here are the scenarios:

1. Plugins that are shipped with Headlamp, or installed from the catalog, and the user is developing/testing the same plugin locally.
2. Plugins that are shipped with Headlamp and also available in the catalog. If the user goes to the catalog and finds a plugin that is already shipped in Headlamp, what should be the options for the user?

Describe the solution you'd like

Proposals:

• Development plugins should be installed into a different plugin folder, as right now they may be overriding plugins installed from the catalog. Having them be served from a different directory would avoid this.
• Headlamp should effectively load plugins in the following order of preference: Development > Installed-From-Catalog > Shipped
• If a plugin is shipped in Headlamp and the user finds it in the Plugin Catalog:
  • If the Catalog's version = Shipped version: show as installed
  • If the Catalog's version > Shipped version: show as updatable
  • (The Catalog's version should never be < Shipped version)
• In the Plugins settings, there should be 3 tables:
  • Installed by the user: Plugins installed from the catalog
  • Shipped in Headlamp: Plugins shipped with Headlamp; this view should show whether they are enabled or disabled because of a newer version from the catalog being installed
  • Development: Plugins installed to the development folder

What users will benefit from this feature?

Desktop users