This was discussed yesterday in the Donor forums and on IRC - we're looking for ways to improve how people submit, download and search for SourceMod plugins.
Right now, the whole process is inlined into the discussion-based vBulletin UI. I don't think that's ideal, or user-friendly, though it makes support easy. EventScripts breaks away from this (
http://addons.eventscripts.com/) though they use what appears to be a custom toolchain (I don't have time to write one - and I don't want to reinvent the wheel).
What I envision:
- People should get a much friendlier search and download user interface.
- People should be able to download all plugins as zip files.
- Plugin developers should be able to upload packages that get compiled and (re-)zipped on our webserver.
- AlliedModders should be able to upgrade and retheme vBulletin quickly, which we can't do since small changes break the plugin system.
One idea is to move off the forum-centric process. There's a system built explicitly for addon-based products called AMO, which powers these sites:
https://addons.mozilla.org/
http://activities.sugarlabs.org/
It might be worth trying this out. What do you think?