On Fabrik Installation

[Stranger]

I am new to Fabrik. I have already checked similar threads but have a few points that I need to clear up before I start using Fabrik.

I am running Joomla! 3 and have recently downloaded Fabrik 3.2 from the JED. I haven't updated from GitHub because, for a start, I am not sure that there has been any code update since the latest release on August 12, 2014 and because I have read that the GitHub download is often a beta version that is likely to have bugs. So what is the difference, as of now, between the Fabrik 3.2 package downloadable on the JED (a 7.4 MB file) and the one downloadable on GitHub (a zip file with the huge size of 26.3 MB)? Could it be that the GitHub version already has some (or all) of the plugins that you have to download separately on the JED?

I find it strange that Fabrik in the backend doesn't have any allusion to the release number that you have and to whether it is the latest release or not as is standard with other components.

Now I know that you only need to download the Fabrik plugins that you need as you need them, but with the overwhelming number of plugins available it seems that you need to be familiar with most of their functionality beforehand so as to know to go back to the relevant one and download it when necessary.

Your thoughts are much appreciated.

 

[troester]

Could it be that the GitHub version already has some (or all) of the plugins that you have to download separately on the JED?

Yes.
GitHub contains ALL plugins (the ones you can download from fabrikar.com/downloads (not JED) + some additional ones) and GitHub contains the (big) domPDF library (needed if you want to use the PDF button).

For a start the official version is ok (although there have been not only extensions but also bug fixes in GitHub meanwhile).

Not sure what you mean with release numbers:
the version number can be seen in Extensions/ExtensionManager and a new (official) release is going into the Joomla updater.

The Joomla update doesn't know about GitHub, "usually" GitHub is showing the last official version number. If you are updating from GitHub it's up to you to keep track.
If you have updated from GitHub once you have to stay with GitHub. I.e. you have to "discover" additional plugins, don't download/install from fabrikar.com because GitHub has newer code and you can't mix the versions.