Show network-activated plugins on site plugins screen

[nacin]

Per ​http://wpdevel.wordpress.com/2011/12/23/core-team-meetup-recap-multisite/, one action item is:

Include network activated plugins in the plugins menu and give message that it is automatically on for the whole network (if admin/have rights to see plugins screen).

To enable the plugins screen for a network, a super admin can go to network/settings.php and enable the menu.

Network-activated plugins should still show on this screen to site administrators. (They just can't activate them.) This should require a few tweaks to the plugins list table.

[abackstrom]

Current patch co-opts the actions list to display the text "Network Active" under the plugin name.

[nacin]

In IRC we've decided to punt this. I have some cleanup I am going to drop in for now.

[nacin]

In [20525]:

Clean up plugins.php with regards to recently edited files, deactivations, and the network admin. see #20468, #20104.

• Limit recently_activated to the site dashboard, and properly remove bulk-activated plugins from the array.
• Remove code used from before the network admin, such as the unused 'network' plugin_status.
• Don't try to deactivate a plugin already deactivated.
• Use more specific caps (manage_network_plugins) rather than is_super_admin().

[DrewAPicture]

Came across this issue again today, would be nice to get it in for 3.5.

[jeremyfelt]

Ideas on how to solve this would be interesting. I like the idea of showing off some plugins that are activated network wide to site owners. Here's the ​IRC conversation to punt before 3.4 shipped.

• A network plugin could offer site specific settings through a settings link on this page, though that's not something that should occur by default as most plugins won't be expecting that.
• Network admins may want to hide some plugins from this list.

Would a filter that defaults to false work? Then a network admin could opt in with a plugin to show the plugins.

[wpdavis]

yes plz. At the very least, a filter or site setting would be nice. It would help site owners better understand the behavior of their sites, which can be hard to do if there are plugins running you don't know about. Even as a network admin, I'm often confused if I look at a site's activated plugins and don't see what I'm expecting.

[Ipstenu]

At this point, while useful, it would need to be something people could disable or filter. A lot of networks don't want users to know what plugins are network active or not, since it's like mu plugins. They can't do anything about it and have no debug capabilities, so it doesn't matter for anything other than 'what plugin am I using?' informationally.

That said, it would help debug site specific issues.

Maybe, like mu, a separate tab for network wide plugins? That would easily differentiate for per site admins.

[jeremyfelt]

I'm wondering if we could start by having it only visible for network (super) admins with a filter to enable for site administrators that have plugin access. I know I've gone crazy before as a super admin trying to figure out where a plugin is.

[Ipstenu]

I like that idea Jeremy. My gut tells me that a lot of people who keep a locked down network (which is a higher number than one might think) would prefer this.

[johnbillion]

In 20104.3.diff​ I've taken a somewhat simpler approach.

If the current user can manage network plugins, then network-active plugins are included alongside other plugins in the 'All' and 'Active' tabs on a single site Plugins screen (and they show up in search results too). Each network-active plugin's actions list is replaced with a 'Network Active' message, its checkbox is not displayed, and thus no actions are available from this screen.

This also introduces a show_network_active_plugins filter, which allows the inclusion of network-active plugins on this screen to be controlled.

Thoughts?

Screenshot:

[DrewAPicture]

Some notes on 20104.3.diff​:

• Per the screenshot, is it just me, or does the "Network Active" text look a bit too large? I see it's registered as an action, so maybe it's just that the linked row actions look smaller
• In the filter doc, we should either mention that passing a falsey value will disable showing network active plugins, or instead do a stricter boolean check on $show_network_active
• I really like the idea of simply interspersing the network active plugins in the list, and thereby making them also searchable
• I agree on hiding the checkboxes, that's the obvious way to go

[DrewAPicture]

I take back what I said about the "Network Active" text being too large. Looks a lot better with the patch applied than in the screenshot.

[DrewAPicture]

See network_active_settings.png​ for what this looks like when a plugin has added a settings link to the the row actions.

[johnbillion]

Screenshot above confirms that the plugin action links are working as expected. EDD prepends its settings link, whereas Stream appends it.

[johnbillion]

20104.4.diff​ introduces another tweak. Inactive network-only plugins (plugins with Network: true in their plugin header) are now also shown to Super Admins on an individual sites' Plugins screen. The screenshot above demonstrates the four possible states:

• Network Plugin Auditor: an inactive network-only plugin.
• oEmbed API: an active plugin.
• Posts 2 Posts: an inactive plugin.
• Query Monitor: a network-active plugin.

[DrewAPicture]

Replying to johnbillion:

20104.4.diff​ introduces another tweak. Inactive network-only plugins (plugins with Network: true in their plugin header) are now also shown to Super Admins on an individual sites' Plugins screen. The screenshot above demonstrates the four possible states:

• Network Plugin Auditor: an inactive network-only plugin.
• oEmbed API: an active plugin.
• Posts 2 Posts: an inactive plugin.
• Query Monitor: a network-active plugin.

I'm not sure how useful it is to show network-only-not-activated plugins in the single site view, though I suppose for consistency it might make sense since we're exposing everything else.

[jeremyfelt]

Just deployed this into our production environment and everything is looking great.

I agree with Drew about inactive network-only plugins, though I personally don't have any configured so I'm not sure how useful it is.

[Ipstenu]

Re network-only-not-activated plugins. Since only the super admin can see this out of the box, it's good to know that before you activate a per-site plugin that does something, do you have a multisiteable one?

Also if you did decide to roll this out to per-site admins as well, they could know not to ask for things to be installed because there's a network one. And then argue for it's activation ;)

[johnbillion]

In 35151:

Include network-active plugins and inactive network-only plugins on the Plugins listing screen for individual sites on Multisite.

These plugins are only shown to users with the manage_network_plugins capability, which is Super Admins by default. This new feature lowers the blood pressure of Super Admins who may browse or search the Plugins listing screen of an individual site, having forgotten that a particular plugin is network-active. Showing inactive network-only plugins here also reduces friction when searching the Plugins listing screen on individual sites.

This change introduces a show_network_active_plugins filter which controls whether the network-active plugins and inactive network-only plugins are shown. This can be used to enable this functionality for regular site admininstrators, or, indeed, to disable this functionality for Super Admins.

Fixes #20104

[johnjamesjacoby]

Throwing notices on "Drop-ins" & "Must-use" views:

Notice: Undefined variable: restrict_network_active in /srv/www/wordpress-develop/src/wp-admin/includes/class-wp-plugins-list-table.php on line 665

Notice: Undefined variable: restrict_network_only in /srv/www/wordpress-develop/src/wp-admin/includes/class-wp-plugins-list-table.php on line 665

[johnjamesjacoby]

Set default $restrict variable values to prevent notices

[johnjamesjacoby]

This should probably go back to 4.4; the debug notices are a regression since 4.3.

[wonderboymusic]

In 35361:

Plugins: after [35151], set default $restrict_network_* values to prevent notices.

Props johnjamesjacoby.
Fixes #20104.

[johnjamesjacoby]

Thanks!