If a plugin is free (I.E.: tagger) you have a few options:
Work through it (best way) - It will cost you time and you will learn something that will make you understand the plugin and subsequent similar plugins and make you a better dev in general.
Hire a coach - it will cost both money and time, but maybe a lot less time, and you end up with the same level of knowledge to help you out in the future.
Hire a freelancer - it will cost you money and very little time but youâll have a working solution.
Sponsor a solution - it will cost you money and very little time, but youâll have better documentation for the future, and so will everyone else. PM the dev and say how much is your time worth, and can I buy some of it to help out the community.
It took me roughly 1 hour to set up tagger when I first tried it. I expect it will take the brand-new bubble novice 4ish. It will take a coach whoâs done it before 20-30 mins to get the bubble novice up to speed. It will take the average freelancer 20mins-1hr depending on your setup to integrate it. I estimate it will take Guarav 1-2 hours to build a doc for it.
But the height of arrogance, IMHO, is to say âThanks for investing this time and energy and making things available to me for free and now Iâm going to tell you that youâre not doing your job to the fullest by not providing more value for free. Thanks.â What kind of value are you going to provide in return?
If a plugin is NOT FREE:
Standard business rules apply. Ask for your money back, ask for the documentation, ask for help in integrating the solution.
If not happy with the product and service, boycot the provider.
Sponsor a solution.
That said, who is here to sponsor documentation and for what plugin?
I didnât say they were not confusing. They are. Partly because of the way they are written, and partly because they assume a level of understanding of Bubble.
Hereâs how I think of feedback (the quoted text being sent by a user to the builder):
Not actionable Feedback :
" The documentation isnât adequate for someone new to bubble. I had to spend a bunch of time figuring it out. It can be improved. "
Actionable Feedback :
" The documentation lacks X & Y, which is especially useful for someone new to bubble. I figured it out after spending a bunch of time. It might be a good idea to update it from documentation / example / post here: ZZZ"
Pay-it-Forward Feedback :
" Thanks for the plugin. I thought the current documentation could be improved. I copied your existing documentation and made the changes. Hereâs a revised documentation that you can copy-paste to update on your plugin page."
Itsâ pretty disheartening to see such messages, which attack the person and not the problem.
About two years ago, I used to tell others how awesome bubble forum is, with people helping each other. The case in point is that @NigelG taking the initiative and creating the docs with examples after finding the tagger plugin. Unfortunately, the quality of discourse on the forum seems to be steadily declining from Pay-it-forward feedback to such messages.
@major_groove glad to hear that.
For future reference: most plugins have one / many support threads going on in the bubble forum (similar to how stack overflow is for coders). Itâs highly likely that as you use more plugins you may need to refer the forum posts. Something that may make your work quicker - click on the bottom arrow of the first post of a thread, and you will see all the links associated which refer the thread. That should save you bunch of time.
For example for the tagger thread, it lists links including sample pages, @NigelGâs docs etc. :
@NigelG then replies âI am sorry to say this, but if you are having trouble with these instructions, then you are going to struggle with some non-plugin functions in bubble too.â
I too am disappointed in @NigelG 's reply to a new Bubbler, who is learning, and who cannot understand what is clearly inadequate instructions on a plugin page.
Regardless of who has developed the plugin, for another Bubbler to step into the conversation, a Bubbler who once had to learn Bubble themselves, and tell them it is the Userâs fault that they have problems with those instructions is poor form.
@NigelG you are a prolific and vocal contributor and like me you donât hold back your opinions but telling @major_groove that understanding instructions is on him is not something nice and not something I would wish to hear said to new Bubblers.
If there is more info on the forum about it then a simple âI have myself created more information on it here to help youâ would be sufficient.
@gaurav you mentioned that the user could copy your instructions and make the changes themselves! - how are they to do that if they donât understand the instructions? They obviously canât.
You also quoted the height of arrogance quote - which was obviously not directed to you since you werenât in the conversation, itâs directed to the 2 developers here who stepped in and made ongoing comments that it was a user problem and debating over whether the instructions are clear or not and the argument that they donât need to be free and clear instructions since the plugin was free was something only someone who has never worked in sales or marketing and wants to attract new customers would say.
I donât normally write long replies defending my pov, I normally let it go, but in this case I want new Bubblers to be supported, not told that they are âgoing to struggleâ.
I did not say that it was his âfaultâ. But there are many areas of Bubble (plugins and native) that are not all that easy to figure out. Jeez, I still have no real clue as to how the responsive engine works.
That is a fact, even if it is not a palatable one. It was a just supposed to be a realistic warning as to the learning curve ahead. But it was badly worded. My apologies.
I have to be honest I was fairly miffed when I read @NigelGâs original reply to me, but as I knew he was a valued contributor to the forum and seemed like a sound fella elsewhere I just put it down to a badly worded response, as he admits, and tried to reply as constructively and positively as I could.
Bubble will only succeed as long as people like Nigel and others who have commented here, as well as plugin builders, continue to help numpties noobs like me with my numpty questions, so I am very grateful for the help I have already received.
You beat me to this! I was about to write a post about Bubbleâs âWild West of PluginsââŚ
Most plugins have BARELY ANY instructions. And when they are there, they are assuming the reader should know wtf is going on. Itâs so frustrating, and so time wasting.
Bubble really needs to clamp down on this wild west mentality. They should have an approval process, and the plugin pages should have question and answers built in - much like Envatoâs themeforest.
I love Bubble, but thereâs so much codey talk everywhere, and the no-code marketing isnât quite right. Iâm forcing myself to learn, but heck - people making plugins need to act as if the user knows NOTHING. Baby steps will earn you more users and more word-of-mouth referrals! Throwing a plugin up with zero useful instructions will net the opposite affect.â
Also, plugins should be able to have some kind of GUI so plugin builders can make a no-brainer experience for users. At the moment, itâs nearly all âthrow them in the deep end and hope they learnt how to keep afloatâ! Ugh.
I agree with pretty much everything said here. There are some AWESOME plugins available, and the people who have created them are amazing and massively appreciated by me, and I am sure most other Bubble users. But the documentation definitely needs a little work.
It isnât like most of them need full blown manuals or anything. Just a few pointers to what cryptic settings (and even not so cryptic settings) might do would be awesome. Otherwise it means hours of trial and error to get things running.
All of that said though, Iâve found the publishers of plugins to be super-responsive and really helpful, so whatâs lacking with documentation is made up for by the help given by these great peeps.
The documentation for Air Calendar shows you how it probably should be done: https://seanhoots.gitbook.io/airplugins/air-calendar That said, even with good documentation and a good demo plus editor to play with the learning curve is still steep for me.
To make a small economic case, I was confident enough about the Air Calendar plugin after reading the documentation that I am already paying for the plugin (plus paying for Bubble for the first time). I would agree that maybe Bubble should treat the plugins like their app store (which it is more or less) and only allow to publish if the documentation meets a minimum standard. Or maybe just mark those with good documentation as âapprovedâ so as not to put off those who kindly provide free plugins.
@NigelG maybe people making documentation suggestions in the Forum threads is fine, but editing descriptions and help texts would probably lead to chaos.
Yeah, it would be great if there was a plugin API which enabled devs to create their own plugin configuration UI, but honestly, I donât see that happening any time soon. Unfortunately, devs are stuck with the look and limitations of the built-in property editor.
I also agree with the âwild westâ analogy. Iâve seen âofficialâ docs as a forum post, as a Google Doc, on Gitbook, or simply as part of the plugin description. Itâd be great if, at the very least, there was some universally adopted convention.
For my next plugin, I think Iâll try using the demo app itself for both the documentation / reference as well as providing editor access. That way, as least everything is âin one placeâ. As for providing support, I will encourage posting to the plugin help category here in the forums.
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Throwing a plugin up with zero useful instructions will net the opposite affect.â