Hi,
I just wanted to suggest a tiny improvement (probably not development wise, but from author’s perspective) to the item updates approval flow (mainly themes and plugins that keep the changelog going).
There is a small thing that ticks me off whenever I have to release an update - informing users about changes in my script. In other words keeping the changelog up to date.
At this moment the process is very “lousy” and doesn’t provide any control over the time that an update of the plugin goes live, thus an author can’t know when to update item’s changelog (or any other part of their listing copy). I faced a similar situation a few times when a client of mine received a notification from Envato informing about new available update, but they couldn’t know what has changed since my item’s listing hadn’t been updated just yet (i didn’t have time or wasn’t around a computer). Next thing I know they contact me personally asking if I implemented features they requested or fixed a bug or … you get the idea.
One could suggest to update item’s listing changelog right away along with the update submission, but then if someone happens to buy the plugin between changelog update and actual update approval they will question why plugin doesn’t do what it says it does or they might question why they can’t download the latest version. This could also lead to poor reviews.
As you see either way isn’t ideal at this moment. I suggest that when a reviewer approves an update it doesn’t go live immediately, but sits there for an author’s go-ahead. It can be in a form of an e-mail or a simple notification in the dashboard saying “Hey! Great news! We’ve approved your latest update to XXXXXXX item. Click here to put it live”
Just a little thing, which would prevent clients from getting confused and saving authors from getting bombarded with questions about the update.
Does it make sense?