What should we do if we make an improvement to a node in the Package Manager? I know we can rename it and upload it as a unique node but, assuming it’s an actual improvement, is that the best approach?
Example; the Build Irregular Sublists node created by andydandy assumes you only want multiple nested lists in a parent list as your output. But what if you need to have a single nested list in the parent (as might happen if the user selects a single item instead of multiple items in a previous node that this node is referencing)? If you don’t provide the BIS node with a lists of multiple numbers representing lengths it returns an error in the Python node. As a way around that I added an IF statement that examines the number of items in the lengths input and returns a single list of the original list if there is only one item, otherwise it works as before. It could probably be done in Python as well but that’s beyond me for now.
Is it an improvement? I think so but maybe that’s hubris. I do know that I can use this revised node in more, and varied, situations than I could the original so it’s more useful to me and I want to provide it back to the community so that others can benefit as well.
I’m happy to rename it and upload it as a new node but I wanted to get others thoughts on the issue as well.
Hello Greg,
the architecture of the package manager seems to have been designed to support multiple maintainers for a package at some point in the future (see Peter Boyers comment at https://github.com/DynamoDS/Dynamo/issues/1170 for more details). Maybe head over there and give that issue a +1 in order to see it resolved more quickly. Personally, I would like to have this ability to collaborate more efficiently on packages rather today than tomorrow.
That said, since you were talking about one of my packages: if you find that one of my packages needs improvement, you can either contact me directly through my profile on this site or submit a fix or issue via https://github.com/CAAD-RWTH/DynamoSamples. I can’t speak for others, obviously, but with regard to my packages I also don’t mind at all if you upload an improved version under a new name. It would appreciate it, though, if you could notify me as it might make sense for me to deprecate my original package.
How can I add a ‘maintainer’ of a package? If I go to Manage Packages > Publish version and try to re-upload my package I get an error 'The user sending the new package version, XXXXX, is not a maintainer of the package XXXXX. I changed by Autodesk user name but the package manager is still showing my old Autodesk user name and won’t let me upload.
Plus it would be good to set it up so that others can collaborate. Any ideas?