Until now, adding a plugin to Evi meant finding a folder and dropping files into it. That’s fine if you write plugins. It’s not how anyone else wants to spend their evening. As of Evi 0.2, the store lives right in the Plugins tab.
Browse, install, done
Every plugin gets its own page: what it does, screenshots, its changelog, a link to its source and, most importantly, what it can access. Browse by category, sort by name, stars or what was updated most recently, and hit install. Most plugins start right away, no restart, no reload.
Themes work the same way, in the Themes tab. Install one and it’s applied the moment it lands.
What’s in it on day one
The store starts with Evi’s own plugins and a first theme. More are on the way.
Checked before it’s installed
The store is a single list, the registry, served from evi.rest. For every file of every plugin, it lists a fingerprint: a SHA-256 hash of exactly what the author published.
When you install something, Evi does it in a strict order:
- 1
Download everything first
Every file is fetched into memory, over https only. A download that redirects away from https fails the install. - 2
Check every fingerprint
Each file is hashed and compared with the registry. The plugin’s manifest is also checked against its store entry, so a plugin can’t quietly claim more access than the store says it has. - 3
Move it in, all at once
The files are staged next to your plugins and moved into place with a single rename. An update swaps the old version out the same way, and puts it back if anything goes wrong.
If a single byte is off, you’ll see which file it was, and nothing is installed:
Install failed
index.js doesn't match the registry (sha256 3f9a02c41e7b…, expected 8d17e6b0c2aa…).
Nothing was installed.Three kinds of access
Not everything in the store can do the same things, and each page tells you plainly which kind you’re looking at.
Native plugins are the ones to think about. They run outside the browser sandbox, like any app you install. Evi won’t install one without asking, in plain words:
Updates, without the surprises
When updates are out, the Plugins tab says how many, with an Update all button. Turn on Update automatically and Evi checks shortly after Discord starts and every six hours after that, installs what’s new and tells you what changed.
A new version may do more than the one you agreed to. So native plugins always wait for your OK.
That goes for Update all as well: you can update everything, or only the rest.
Only what the store installed
Everything the store installs carries a small marker with the hash of each file. Plugins you added by hand don’t have one, and the store leaves them alone: it won’t overwrite, update or remove them. They show up as installed outside the store, and stay yours.
Stars
Like something? Star it. It’s one star per Evi install, tied to a random ID that says nothing about you or your machine. You can sort the store by the most starred.
What’s next
Right now the store carries Evi’s own plugins and themes. If you’ve built something for Evi, come say hi on GitHub.