Raising the standard for tools in the library

[redmondChris]

I love the concept of XrmToolBox. Unfortunately, many of the third-party tools I've tried leave room for improvement or are no longer functioning. After going through quite a few tools with such issues, I'm realizing that it's a challenge to find the ones that (still) fully deliver the functionality that their descriptions suggest. It would be great to know that any tool I try will a) do what it promises, b) be intuitive to use (or at least well-explained in Help docs), and c) be actively supported.

Suggestion: add a few additional requirements for tool developers before adding (or leaving) their tools in the XrmToolBox Tool Library, such as...

• Require developers to provide links from their tool UI (not just the tool description) in XrmToolBox to a) their project site, and b) their help documentation.
• Set some minimum bar for the completeness of each tool's help file (e.g., it should include clear instructions for every affordance visible in their tool UI).
• Establish some kind of check-in process (perhaps annually) in which the tool developer affirms that their tool is still functional and actively supported.
• Go one step further on the check-in process by requiring each tool developer to link to a) their Issues page as confirmation that they're responding to any new user feedback, and/or their b) Code page as confirmation that they're continuing to update their tool. (Alternatively, perhaps there is a good way to programmatically check one or both of these conditions.)

Please continue your work on XrmToolBox and fostering its tools developer community. There is clearly still a need for these tools as a supplement to what Microsoft provides, and the potential for how much XrmToolBox could help is still immense. Having a higher standard for tools to be included (and remain) in the Tool Library, and removing tools that aren't actively maintained, would significantly increase the usefulness and effectiveness of using XrmToolBox.