[meta] Less confusing and more consistent wording needed in module/theme add/install/update

I'm updating the issue summary here to attempt to collect all the issues together into one unified description. I found a few more that weren't listed here as children, and added this issue as a parent. This is a mess! I think we should resolve it on this issue and close all/most of the others as duplicates (the patch would be small, even with all the issues, as it's all UI text changes). We plan to discuss this at the next Usability meeting #3159742: Drupal Usability Meeting 2020-07-21.

Fixing HTML in summary.

Thanks for pulling all this together, @jhodgdon!

This was all made worse and more confusing at #2056089: UI problems on the Modules/Extend page when the 'Install' buttons at the bottom of the page were added. Used to be 'Save configuration' which is also bad, but our whole terminology on 'install' vs. 'enable' is very inconsistent.

Not sure if it's in scope for this meta or not, but when reviewing all this, #1207354-6: Install new module v/s Add new module by @Pancho is among the best summaries of the weirdness I've seen:

We're currently having a major WTF with module (un)install:

1. Adding a module to our site is called "install". It then appears on the module list but doesn't really get installed.
2. It's only installed when we're "enabling" the module for the first time.
3. When we "disable" the module, it's not getting uninstalled, though.
4. When we "uninstall" the module, it's finally getting uninstalled, but not removed.
5. Once added, it isn't possible to remove the module again, except via filesystem.

While we can't completely clean up this terminology, we should try to improve on the wording of corresponding actions. It seems quite some improvement to settle with:

1. Adding a module to our site is called "add". It then appears on the module list.
2. It's only installed when we're "enabling" the module for the first time.
3. When we "disable" the module, it's not getting uninstalled, though.
4. When we "uninstall" the module, it's finally getting uninstalled, but not removed.
5. We come up with a way to remove the module from the list, so it doesn't further clutter up our module page.

Some of that seems a bit outdated, since we can't "enable" or "disable" a module any more (using the terminology currently in the UI anyway). But yes, several people have suggested we change the terminology for uploading files for a module/theme to the site to "Add". We need to change it to something -- I think I might prefer to say "Upload" (or better yet not have this functionality at all -- it has always seemed like a security risk to me and I have never set it up on any site I've built, and with Composer issues now it seems like a bad idea anyway -- but that discussion is out of scope for this issue about the UI text).

We discussed this meta issue in the Usability meeting today #3159742: Drupal Usability Meeting 2020-07-21.

The current consensus seems to be:

a) The process of putting files for modules and themes onto the file system should probably be called "Add".
b) The process of turning on/off modules and themes should be called Enable/Disable.

How to organize fixing this, and whether we should also address URLs, and the Update process's many URLs and screens, remains an open question, but I've added those two items to the issue summary under Proposed Resolution.

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We also discussed @sajosh's suggestion of expanding the scope to think of the entire add/install/configure/permission process of getting and turning on a module or theme, and later of updating it. @sajosh uploaded a document to #2577407-174: Action of uploading module/theme files should consistently be called "Add", not "Install" that suggests that we need a wizard-style interface that would guide users through these processes, and also points out that the Available Updates report is accessible from several URLs and several UI navigation points and tab headers, but all of them are basically the same thing (/admin/reports/updates vs. /admin/modules/update vs. another URL for themes, and all 3 show both modules and themes).

This document also suggests many changes to the UI in this area, so I'll link that in the issue summary as well. It would be useful to go through the document and figure out which things are changes and which are the way things currently are, and make a summary of the changes to put into the issue summary, but I don't have time to do that today.

Choosing a more "usability" sounding (and less musical) title. I'll also add a comment to the child issues to alert them we are working on it here and probably a patch would be premature.

Yes, thanks for pulling these together @jhodgdon.

In #19:

a) The process of putting files for modules and themes onto the file system should probably be called "Add".

It looks like that is a very sensible first step in reducing the confusion. Without having to touch the enable/install discussion :)
At the very least that would add clarity around the different steps.

- *Add* a theme/module to make it *Available*
- *Enable/Install* an available theme/module to make it *Enabled/Installed/Active?*
- etc.

Trying things out in this spreadsheet: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1O8HI634U-L6-853sIVxw-jbSPEDxCkNn...

We discussed this issue and #3162049: Better wording of the module life-cycle admin pages at the Usability meeting today:
#3178030: Drupal Usability Meeting 2020-11-13

The conclusion we came to was that fixing up the UI for module/theme add/install/uninstall should be divided up into 5 phases of fixes that we could actually get done, each in its own issue. Here is a list of what we decided should be done, with anything else currently listed in the issue summary being out of scope for what we discussed today:

1. There is a UI that lets you upload the files either from a URL or a tarball. The UI for this should consistently use the verb "Add" (currently uses "Install", see item 1 in the issue summary here), and if there is any mention of removing files from the disk, that should use the verb "Remove". This can be done in a minor release, as it is only UI text changing.

   We also noted that at the Composer command line, the verb for this action is "require", but we don't want to use that in the UI inside Drupal. There is no Drush command for doing this.

2. There is a UI that lets you turn a module/theme on/off. Turning it on adds configuration and often database tables. Turning it off removes content, configuration, and/or database tables. The UI for this should consistently use the verbs "Install" and "Uninstall". Currently it mostly does use these verbs, but it says "Enable" in a few places. This can be fixed in a minor release, as it is only UI text changes.

   We also noted that the Drush commands use the verbs "enable"/"uninstall"; we should probably see if we can get Drush to be more consistent in its use of these verbs too.

3. We should not use the verbs Install/Uninstall for other actions in the module/theme space. For instance, there is currently UI that talks about "installing updates", which should use the verb "Update" instead of "Install". This can be done in a minor release, as it is only UI text changing.
4. Make the URLs for each of these actions consistent with the UI text. This should be postponed until the first 3 issues are done (or at least the first two). This could be done in a minor release with a BC layer that redirects the old to new URLs; the BC layer would be removed in the next major release.
5. Make the API function names for these actions consistent with the UI text. This should be postponed until the firsts 3 issues are done. This could be done in a minor release with a BC layer or deprecations; the BC layer or deprecated functions would be removed in the next major release.

I'm adding this to the Proposed Resolution in the issue summary. Next step will be to create/identify child issues for each step, postpone issues as necessary, and close other child issues as duplicates as appropriate.

Expanded/clarified #2577407: Action of uploading module/theme files should consistently be called "Add", not "Install" to be the issue for item 1 in the plan. In conjunction with that, #976232: "Install" button at admin/*/install should be labeled "Continue", #2839586: Make the wording on the "Install new modules" page more clear are marked as duplicate.

Expanded/clarified #2891294: [Meta] Use Install/Uninstall consistently for turning modules/themes on/off (not Enable) to be the issue for item 2 in the plan. #2856038: Confusing instructions when installing a theme in D8 is marked a duplicate. https://github.com/drush-ops/drush/issues/4588 is the corresponding issue for Drush.

Created #3182405: Do not use verb "Install" for things other than turning on modules/themes for item 3.

#2888654: URLs for module/theme actions are inconsistent with UI text is for item 4.

Created #3182408: API function names in module/theme install/uninstall space should match UI for item 5.

Add related issue

Can you add that to the issue summary in the right place? Also is it a duplicate of other issues here? By the title I would guess it is.

@jhodgdon, Yes, looks like a duplicate of #2891294: [Meta] Use Install/Uninstall consistently for turning modules/themes on/off (not Enable). I've updated the issues and moved the patch from the duplicate and added credit.