Review queue & distributing ways

Photoshop UXP Plugin API
1

I’ve read that the review process on the marketplace has slowed down after MAX since the team is recovering from the event, which is fully understandable.
Anyways, I was wondering if there are some updates to this topic, maybe a time estimation or similar?
I submitted a plugin in the night before MAX (20. October), so UXP wasn’t public yet and I assume there weren’t that many submissions. Almost two weeks later, it’s still “In Review”, regarding this I have two questions:

  • Shouldn’t there be a way to update the submitted plugin without getting sent to the back of review queue? My submitted version was 1.0.0, however I fixed a few bugs and added more features shortly after. I’m hesitant to submit the new version 1.1.0 though, since I don’t want to lose 2 weeks of waiting for review

  • What was the recommended/necessary way of distributing the plugin on other channels, such a a personal website? Simply change the ID in the manifest (to be different from the one assigned via Adobe Console) and bundle it up again?

I’m eager to get the plugin out there :smile:

2 Likes
2

While in my case, it’s for XD, I could imagine it’s similar (although I don’t know how Photoshop handles plugin IDs).

Personally (I’m also in the queue with an update I had submitted on the 20th), I keep the same id. While this doesn’t allow installing the plugin if it’s already installed via the marketplace, I tell users in my instructions to uninstall previous versions when trying to install the plugin with a file distributed outside the plugin marketplace.

I usually distribute (in the case of XD plugins, .xdx) plugin installer files as soon as they’re ready as a sort of “early access” via my website (which also allows me to have an uncomplicated “Beta tester system”: “Download the file from my website, where it’s already public” :wink:) and submit the plugin for review, setting it to “manually release later,” meaning I can, after it’s approved (and if there were no major problems during the “early access”), release it including Social Media announcements, etc.

I, too, however, would appreciate some ETA of the plugin review, as it includes some bug fixes I’d like to publish to Document Chat :slightly_smiling_face:

1 Like
3

cc @ashryan for his feedback & comments.

To your points, @simonhenke:

  • Going back to the end of the review queue is the only fair way to manage updates – otherwise the system could be gamed in ways that would slow down reviews for everyone else.
  • Distribution via other channels using the same ID or different ID is up to you. If you use the same ID, then your user can opt-in to continue to receive updates from the marketplace when they are released. IMO, this is the smoothest option from the user’s perspective. If you use a different ID, the plugins act as two separate versions, and so a user with both may end up confused as to which is which. Further, with a separate ID, there are no automatic update notifications.

I like @pklaschka’s take on doing this as an early-access/beta release process, where those who are OK w/ getting plugins via a website can still do so, while (assuming you use the same ID), getting the update notifications when approved & released on the marketplace.

3 Likes
4

Hi all,

+1 to the responses shared thus far.

In terms of ETA, it looks like we should be able to get caught up by the end of this week. Our normal average response time is under 2 days.

Please be patient with the team members who are reviewing your work, as they were impacted by the same system issues that caused the backup in the first place.

I submitted a plugin in the night before MAX (20. October), so UXP wasn’t public yet and I assume there weren’t that many submissions.

I assure you, between the Photoshop prerelease and the usual influx of XD plugins for MAX, we had lots of submissions to catch up to by Oct 20.

I’m eager to get the plugin out there :smile:

We’re just as excited as you are! Hopefully we won’t keep you waiting much longer.

2 Likes
5

Thanks for the replies everyone.

@kerrishotts
I’m not quite getting your first point. I didn’t mean that updates should be upfront in general. Instead, I was thinking of the review as some kind of reserved date/slot, until which you could update/replace your submission as often as you want.
Let’s assume I submit v.1.0.0 and my review will be in 10 days. In the meantime, I could keep working on the plugin, replace the submitted version with v.1.0.1, v.1.0.2,… v.1.0.7 and at the time my review slot has a turn, the reviewer only has to inspect the latest version v.1.0.7.

Regarding the ID: Alright, then I’ll simply keep the ID consistent :slight_smile:

@ashryan That’s great to hear! I didn’t mean to rush or anything, I just wasn’t sure whether I maybe messed up the submission as it’s the first time I’ve used Adobe Dev Console.

2 Likes
6

I didn’t mean to rush or anything, I just wasn’t sure whether I maybe messed up the submission

Perfectly understandable. Review turnaround time is a top-level metric that we track rigorously; when the average goes up in short period of time, we feel it too.

1 Like
7

I heard from the team that you should have a response by now. We’re getting pretty close to caught up with the post-MAX rush, so the next time around should be much faster.

1 Like
8

Unfortunately, I’m still waiting for my plugin to get accepted. Is the review queue that cluttered again?

After the initial soft-reject on 03.11, I essentially just had to change the Plugin name, which I did and resubmitted it the same day. 21 days later there’s still no sign of life - I was hoping that i’d get it up before the Black Friday week started.

Also, I noticed that on the Plugin>Photoshop tab it always sets “last modified” and “created” to the current day (which is incorrect of course)
image
I just want to make sure there’s no bug that sends me to the end of the queue everytime I check for an update :sweat_smile: :thinking:

9

I did not see any new plugin in the marketplace for about two weeks? So I am not sure how busy they are.

10

@simonhenke What’s your plugin ID?

I don’t see any submissions from the 24th, so probably not resetting things :wink:

cc @ashryan ^^^

11

Checking with the team. The review queue is no longer backed up, but there are a few outlier issues holding up review of a handful of plugins, and it could be that yours is one of them. I’ll report back when I know more.

1 Like
12

@kerrishotts it’s c48ffca5.
Alright, then it’s just a display bug

@ashryan Thanks for the update, let’s hope everything is fine with my plugin this time :smiley:

13

Yep, yours is one of the few lucky ones that is stuck due to a rare technical issue that is being investigated. Apologies for the further delay. I’m hoping we’ll see resolution over night, North America time.

2 Likes
14

@simonhenke Sounds like you’ve been approved as of about 2 hours ago.

2 Likes
15

@ashryan Indeed :tada: Thanks again for your help & updates.

2 Likes
16

I am getting somewhat frustrated with the review times. I have had a big new update adding two new panels to my plugin ready for almost two weeks now. I submitted it for review, but continued working on the plugin, so resubmitted after a few days with some more new features. I ended up doing this a few times, so this is my own fault according to the current ‘rules’ of engagement, but I really need to get my new features out so that I can start a marketing campaign.

I submitted my last update three days ago, and it’s still sitting in the review queue, and guess what? I have another update with some more new features. I’m excited about my plugin and having seen a few nice little payments come through already, I would say that my audience are excited too, and many of them are waiting for these new features, but I can’t get them published!

To Kerri’s statement quoted above, honestly, I feel like I am being gamed. If you were to work on the basis that most of the people developing UXP-based plugins are like me, excited about the tech, working hard to provide quality plugins, then I believe something needs to change. Your anti-gaming solution is causing problems for the “good guys” while protecting you from what I would think is a relatively small number of “bad guys”.

And, if you take my current situation, which I’m sure is not that unique, I will be submitting a new update as soon as you’ve finished my currently submitted review, and surely that will also slow down the review process for everyone. If I could add updates until someone starts the review, without losing my place in the queue, you would have just one review to do, not two, and I wouldn’t have needed to wait two weeks to get my shiny new features out into the world.

I realize that you are probably understaffed and working hard to build this platform, and I among probably many others, really appreciate the work that you are doing, but please try to improve this review process. It’s really hurting the majority of people that are excited to be creating plugins with this new platform.

Regards,
Martin.

1 Like
17

So, I broke down and resubmitted my latest build because I finished some more new features, and now I’m working on more, but I still haven’t had a build accepted for almost three weeks now. Most of them have been in the queue for two to three days without being accepted, so the team is not achieving their goal of turning around reviews in two business days.

I just checked the Marketplace listing plugins by latest, and the latest addition that has a date was August 18, just one plugin. From August 17 there were two plugins released. Before that was August 13. So it seems like at the moment the team is releasing around five to six plugins per week. Unless they are swamped with submissions that end up being rejected, it does not seem like they’re overwhelmed, which makes it even more of a mystery why I can’t get a build accepted within two to three business days.

18

I think all these upgrade suggestions are great. I have a new one. Maybe you get a few emergency review credits per year. You would use these in special circumstances to get your plugin approved sooner.

For example, if you have a critical update you can use one of your credit tokens to get it into reviewer hands right away.

19

Sorry for waking up this topic, but recently I’ve been experiencing strange behavior.
Based on the message while resubmitting a plugin, I understand it should work on FIFO principle and I don’t mind getting in the back of the queue, but that’s not really what happened.

I have 3 versions of my plugin. I always submit first the most expensive one, so that users who pay more, get it first. Then cheaper version and then free. It’s been on multiple occasions now, when I get Free and cheap versions reviewed and approved both at the same time, and normal version gets reviewed/approved only after half a day or so. Why is this happening?

Also it would be great if we could submit a version, that’s already published. Or just retract the In Review submission without submitting another version (or maybe I just missed it? Couldn’t find an option). In my case, after submission, I noticed a bug, that I wouldn’t want to get into the wild and wanted to quickly resubmit previous version, but got an error, complaining version is already there. Then searched how to retract - couldn’t find. Had to rebuild whole plugin on old code :frowning:

1 Like
20

I still think that there should be something like “reputable developers” category. And once you are in then you can do any changes you want to because you already proved that you deliver high quality work.

And for this category there would be only backwards checks. So if reputable developer sends new plugin it goes directly into distribution instantly and then quality control can review it. So Marketplace would be able to compete a little bit more.

1 Like