I know PCM is rather new in KICAD, but I must admit I don’t feel at home when it comes to managing the plugins.
The User interface looks a bit “messy” to me, with not that straightworward way to install plugins.
First of all, I don’t like the idea of clicking “Install” just to find out that not much happens. Until I click “Apply changes”. What changes to apply?
“Install” seems a command. If I click “Install”, i expect that the software will ask me if I know what I’m doing and then will proceed with the installation (the latter only if it cannot be easily and intuitively undone).
What is the “Discard changes”? Again, I don’t have problems using computer software but this confuses me.
Then, the right part of the window. I like the idea to see more information on a particular selected plugin. Text, maybe a screenshot/graphics would be nice. But there are more action buttons if one dares to scroll down: “Download” and “Install”. Is it the same install as to the left?
To me, everything related to this functionality seems unnaturally complicated/overengineered.
Why not just leave the tiles with necessary action button on it?
There’s a lot of implementations that can be used as a guidance, think e.g. Firefox Addon/Theme manager, Appstore and probably many others.
PCM is modeled after linux package managers. If you ever used aptitude/synaptic and the likes you would find similarities.
When you click “Install” it changes to “Pending installation” and grays out, also counter on the “Pending” tab increments. That’s a clue that the action is scheduled, if you look at the “Pending” tab you will see it there.
“Apply changes” and “Discard changes” buttons should make sense now. They execute or cancel actions from the pending queue.
This is done this way because in the future there will be packages with dependencies and user should know/review what will be installed beyond what they clicked “Install” on.
Images support in the description portion are planned for the future.
“Install” button there is same as on the left except it allows you to choose which version of the package to install. It’s not obvious now with only one version, I know.
In my design the versions were separated to another tab instead of being at the bottom of the description. It was later changed by KiCad devs to reduce visual complexity although I am not a fan myself. It’s a matter of compromise, I suppose.