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One thing I've noticed during this beta is that I'm seeing a lot of questions related to addons, which I think is great, but also makes the site slightly less usable for those who try to run as close to stock as we can/don't use the very popular addons like structure.

I'm a StackExchange newbie, so I was wondering if there are any facilities that would make it easy to provide an interface option for displaying questions pertaining just to core or including all the addon related questions as well?

I also wonder whether this would be desirable? I use add-ons here and there, but when I'm in answer mode it would be helpful because I'm much more likely to be able to provide a helpful answer about core than about most addons.

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On a global level, it seems that the tag 'add-on support' (or just 'add-on') would suffice to mark a question as related to an add-on. Another tag can also be applied to name the specific add-on, if needed.

If a user forgets to add the 'add-on' tag, then someone in the community who has the privileges to do so could edit the question to have the proper tag(s).

Or, so it seems.

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  • I agree Stephen, and I think this is the best solution if there is not the capability or call for such a feature in the interface. I think it would be great if that could be a toggle with the question, is this a question about an add-on or ee core? An interface element could then toggle whether to show the add-on tag or not. That is my proposal if the demand is there, and the capability exists in the system. My feeling so far is that maybe it doesn't, so I hope we can adopt the use of add-on for add-on questions as you suggest.
    – UltraBob
    Nov 28, 2012 at 1:48
  • What about "third-party" rather than "add-on" as a tag?
    – kmgdev
    Nov 29, 2012 at 16:13
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Tag filters can help a bit with this. It's a user setting that lets you ignore tags that you are not interested in. More info on tag preferences can be found in Expressing Your Tag Preferences (see the bit about ignored tags).

For example, if you don't use the Structure Module and have no interest in reading or answering questions about that module you can ignore the "Structure" tag. Once this filter is set up questions tagged as "Structure" way will appear as dimmed out in the list of questions.

There is also an option to set favorite tags (formerly known as "interesting tags"), which will then highlight questions that have tags of interest to you.

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  • Thanks Alex. Yeah I knew about tag filtering, and actually have a bit set up for myself. I was more wondering if it would be useful to do it in a more baked in way. I was wondering if there are features for doing something like that built in to stack exchange. I would imagine this would be a fairly common divide for any site dedicated to a technology or framework that consists of a core and community supplied addons.
    – UltraBob
    Nov 27, 2012 at 6:22
  • Ah, yeah, the question about whether such a filter could be baked in came up in the comments on this question, too. Maybe retagging your post with "support" and mentioning @RobertCartaino would make it more likely to get an official response.
    – Alex Kendrick Mod
    Nov 27, 2012 at 14:15
  • Thanks Alex, I'm not really looking for an official response at this stage. I am just trying to start a discussion on whether there is much call for this, and whether someone with more experience with the stackexchange network may have seen something similar on another site. If it seems like there aren't a lot of people who desire this, then that is the answer to my question, though I do like Stephen C's comment as a measure if it isn't to be built onto the interface.
    – UltraBob
    Nov 28, 2012 at 1:40
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I don't think a tag for "core" would be appropriate. The reason most questions here involve add-ons is because most EE questions involve add-ons :) Likewise this would make an "add-on" tag redundant as well, because 80%+ of the questions are going to need it.

The problem with tagging a question with "core" is that even if the question doesn't involve add-ons, you can pretty much guarantee at least one of the answers will. That's the beauty of ExpressionEngine - add-ons make your life easy!

As others have noted, you can easily filter out questions tagged with add-ons you know nothing about, or favorite tags which you do know about.

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    I agree that a core tag isn't really necessary, but I think that an add-on tag would be a good thing. I think there are a fairly large number of core only questions, especially given the frustratingly long lived bugs in EE2. I don't think that a question needs to be tagged with add-on if the answers suggest an add-on, the tags it seems really should pertain to what the question was about. A retag would probably be in order if the overwhelming answer was that there is one best solution: use of this one particular add-on.
    – UltraBob
    Nov 28, 2012 at 1:43

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