This past week the WordPress Plugin Repository has gotten a complete refresh that will greatly improve discussion and support for the 19,000 plugins currently listed. Some of the tweaks may seem small but they’re bound to make a huge difference in the community for developers and plugin users alike.

Here are the most important updates you should know about:

New Support Tab

Forum threads about a plugin are now pulled into a new “support” tab on the plugin’s listing page. This is a huge UI improvement that closely ties support in with its corresponding plugin and makes it more of a focal point. Housing support forums under the plugin page is a much tighter integration and more convenient for anyone browsing.

Plugin Author Display

Plugin authors are now more prominently displayed with bigger gravatars, the number of plugins they’ve created and better placement on the page. This is one of my favorite updates, as it gives developers a little more credit for the plugins they offer for free to the community and gives the donation link more prominence.

Support Activity Summary

Now you can see how active and well-supported a plugin is by glancing at how many threads have been marked as resolved in the last two weeks.

New Favorites Feature

You can now mark plugins as favorites. Your favorites will show up on your WordPress profile page so that you can find them quickly.

Forum Stickies

Forum developers now have the ability to set stickies on the plugin forums. These can be used to showcase FAQs or to provide extra information on troubleshooting. Any user you add as a committer on the plugin will have moderation access to the forum.

Head on over to the plugin repository to check out all the changes. What plugins are you adding as your favorites?