Change phrasing for 'Network Activate' newly installed plugins

[Ipstenu]

Not everyone is clear what 'Network Activate' means and after installing a plugin, a lot of people just assume that activate will turn it on for one site only. Then they complain that the plugin turned it self on automagically!

While it would make the link longer, I think changing it to the same wording we have in the title might actually catch their eye: Activate this plugin for all sites in this network

(The other thought was to put 'Return to Plugins Page' in front of Network install, but that would annoy single site people, of whom there are a majority)

[scribu]

How about 'Activate for all sites' ? The few people running multiple networks can figure it out.

[jeremyfelt]

Need some UX feedback, moving to 3.7 for discussion or close.

+1 for the shorter string via @scribu

[hotchkissconsulting]

Replying to scribu:

How about 'Activate for all sites' ? The few people running multiple networks can figure it out.

+1 -- This still provides clarification while being succinct

[SergeyBiryukov]

"Activate for all sites" sounds good to me.

Note that the string also needs to be changed in the Bulk Actions dropdown.

[Ipstenu]

De/Activate for all sites

[Ipstenu]

Uploaded new diff and I think I got everything. wp-admin/includes/class-wp-plugins-list-table.php and wp-admin/includes/class-wp-upgrader.php

[ocean90]

If the text is changed in the Bulk Actions dropdown, shouldn't it be changed for the action links too? See 20983.patch​

Also: The links already have a title saying "Activate this plugin for all sites in this network". Isn't that enough?

[helen]

Hiding important information in a title is a terrible idea, and it shouldn't have a title anyway. I thought the idea was to change everything, action links and bulk dropdown.

[Ipstenu]

The title is not good enough.

But yes, the idea WAS to change everything and neglecting the bulk dropdown was an omission :)

[ocean90]

Okay, I agree. So should we change the title too? Current:

Deactivate for all sites => Deactivate this plugin
Activate for all sites => Activate this plugin for all sites in this network

And what about themes? There we have "Network Enable".

[Ipstenu]

Themes is a separate mess IMO. The activation/deactivation process is entirely different.

We may as well change the titles to match (or maybe remove as Helen indicated? Does this break accessibility?)

[knutsp]

Network activate is not the same as activate for all sites. If the plugin was just activated for all sites, then it could be deactivated for some, afterwards. Network activate means to force the plugin to be active on all sites, even invisibly to the site admins, and this should be reflected in the text. "Mandatory across network".

[Ipstenu]

It's not 'mandatory' though, it is 'active' on all sites.

Further details would be something for the help screen, but issue we're facing today is a glut of people confusing 'network activate' on plugins with what it means on themes.

I will note that 15 months ago, this ticket was aimed because we were 'network activating' from the primary site on Multisite. This is no longer the case, and while I think using 'Network Activate' for BOTH plugins and themes is inconsistent (they don't mean the same thing), perhaps this should be chucked, and we should have 'Network Enable' for themes and 'Network Activate' for plugins.

Then use the help screen to go further.

[knutsp]

Replying to Ipstenu:

It's not 'mandatory' though, it is 'active' on all sites.

Mandatory, from "TheFreeDictionary": "Required or commanded by authority; obligatory"

Since site admins cannot deactivate such plugins, and since site admins can't even see that such plugins is active, I call them mandatory. If they were just activated, site admins would be able to see them in the list of (active) plugins and deactivate them.

In theory, the "Network activate" action could loop through all sites in the network and make the plugin active, but that is not what's happening, of course. Hence, the plugin becomes mandatory active for all sites in a network, not just happening to be active, in the usual way, on all sites.

And this distinction is exactly what causes confusion. "Network activate" does not provide the superadmin specific information about the effect of this action.

[helen]

Three things:

1. Redundant title attributes hurt accessibility. See #24766.
2. Problems with network enable theme messaging should be addressed separately.
3. We are not going to be able to teach somebody how to be a multisite admin through the wording of a single action link.

[Ipstenu]

Re #1 - So ... we shouldn't have titles at all? I honestly don't know!

I actually feel today we should drop this ticket. The initial need was that when one network activated, one did it from the Plugins page of Site #1. This is no longer the case, the confusion is no longer the case, and 'Network Activate' is a correct term for use here.

So yeah, marking we close my own ticket :)

[jeremyfelt]

I'm working on something right now to globally activate plugins across multiple networks and have 'Activate Globally' as the text at the moment.

I wonder if something like Activate on Network or Activate across Network would work as more of an action statement.

Also good with closing otherwise. :)

[jeremyfelt]

Replying to Ipstenu:

The initial need was that when one network activated, one did it from the Plugins page of Site #1. This is no longer the case, the confusion is no longer the case, and 'Network Activate' is a correct term for use here.

+1 for this reasoning (and @helen's third point).