Fragtality
Publish to Stream Deck store
Hi!
PilotsDeck looks awesome! We'd love to get this published in the Stream Deck store, to make it easy for new users to find. Please let me know if there is anything I can do to help get this into the store.
https://docs.elgato.com/sdk/plugins/packaging https://docs.elgato.com/sdk/plugins/distribution
Thanks!! Really appreciated! 😃
Publishing it on the Store is not as straight forward as it seems:
The Upload Process is additional Workload - sure I could script/template the Mail, but still I would have to invest Time setting that up. And then there is Delay associated with that because it is a manual Review Process - where in comparison GitHub and Flightsim.to I just "drop" the Package and Users get immediate Access (and Information, if subscribed).
Then it is a Question of Reason - sure "new" Users could find it easier. Who are these Users or more specific what is "new" to them? PilotsDeck does nothing on its own after it is installed. You have to setup (either completely manually or get a premade Profile) the Buttons, Switches, Gauges of the Plane. PilotsDeck makes it (mostly) easy to define that, IF the User has the Knowledge how a specific Aircraft can be integrated with. I don't really know, but my Assumption is that these Type of Users hardly exist - someone knowing this Stuff but never seen or searched anything on the different FlightSim Communities to discover my Plugin but instead using the Store to search for a Plugin for such a specific Use-Case? 🤔
But really the biggest Problem and Showstopper are Dependencies! One can't just download and especially run PilotsDeck on any Machine. First it requires .NET 7 installed to even start at all. Then, for P3D Users, they need FSUIPC installed for the Plugin to be actually able to connect and talk to the Sim. For MSFS they need an additional Module installed in the Simulator. That is why I wrote my own little Installer for the Plugin: People not reading (and thus not having) the Requirements or installing them Wrong where the most Support-Requests I had. And a Distribution through the Store only solves the easiest Problem (dropping/extracting the Plugin in the right Folder so StreamDeck can find it).
That makes sense! We do however host quite a few plugins that require external dependencies, typically a FAQ or setup guide can be linked from the store and/or the property inspector to help users find what they need (even if the requirements are quite technical in nature).
In the end it is your decision, but it was pointed out to me as a great potential candidate for the store, so I had to reach out! 🙂
We do however host quite a few plugins that require external dependencies, typically a FAQ or setup guide can be linked
Hmm, interesting! Do you have Examples?
or the property inspector
What exactly do you mean by that? Like hardcoding a Link in PI HTMLs? 🤔
but it was pointed out to me as a great potential candidate for the store, so I had to reach out!
Sounds intriguing, tell me more 😅
Well I guess I could do something like a special Build / Mechanic for the Store Version. A special manifest that loads the Installer on first start or something like that 🤔
Sure! Here is an example of using the external window built into Stream Deck in the Multi OBS Controller plugin: https://share.chektek.com/y9BMr4PL
In this scenario it is mostly used for advanced settings that would not fit in the PI.
Reference: https://docs.elgato.com/sdk/plugins/style-guide#external-window
If you want to open a URL in the user's default browser, you can use the openURL event: https://docs.elgato.com/sdk/plugins/events-sent#openurl
This would be pretty ideal for sending them to download & install external dependencies. You can also bundle premade profiles in the plugin with preconfigured actions, if that would improve the user experience.
https://docs.elgato.com/sdk/plugins/manifest#profiles https://docs.elgato.com/sdk/plugins/events-sent#switchtoprofile
If you need some hardware for testing purposes of course, please reach out to [email protected]