diff --git a/adminer/include/connect.inc.php b/adminer/include/connect.inc.php
index a4aa6550..884acdb2 100644
--- a/adminer/include/connect.inc.php
+++ b/adminer/include/connect.inc.php
@@ -93,8 +93,14 @@ if (
 			echo "<div class='plugins'>\n";
 			echo "<h3>" . lang('Loaded plugins') . "</h3>\n<ul>\n";
 			foreach (adminer()->plugins as $plugin) {
-				$reflection = new \ReflectionObject($plugin);
-				echo "<li><b>" . get_class($plugin) . "</b>" . h(preg_match('~^/[\s*]+(.+)~', $reflection->getDocComment(), $match) ? ": $match[1]" : "") . "\n";
+				$description = (method_exists($plugin, 'description') ? $plugin->description() : "");
+				if (!$description) {
+					$reflection = new \ReflectionObject($plugin);
+					if (preg_match('~^/[\s*]+(.+)~', $reflection->getDocComment(), $match)) {
+						$description = $match[1];
+					}
+				}
+				echo "<li><b>" . get_class($plugin) . "</b>" . h($description ? ": $description" : "") . "\n";
 			}
 			echo "</ul>\n";
 			echo "</div>\n";
diff --git a/adminer/include/plugin.inc.php b/adminer/include/plugin.inc.php
index 7b78b5d2..98f76b4b 100644
--- a/adminer/include/plugin.inc.php
+++ b/adminer/include/plugin.inc.php
@@ -1,14 +1,22 @@
 <?php
 namespace Adminer;
 
+// the overridable methods don't use return type declarations so that plugins can be compatible with PHP 5
 abstract class Plugin {
 	/** @var array<literal-string, string|list<string>>[] */ protected static $translations = array(); // key is language code
 
+	/** Get plain text plugin description; empty string means to use the first line of class doc-comment
+	* @return string
+	*/
+	function description() {
+		return '';
+	}
+
 	/** Translate a string from static::$translations; use Adminer\lang() for strings used by Adminer
 	* @param literal-string $idf
 	* @param float|string $number
 	*/
-	protected function lang(string $idf, $number = null) {
+	protected function lang(string $idf, $number = null): string {
 		$args = func_get_args();
 		$args[0] = idx(static::$translations[LANG], $idf) ?: $idf;
 		return call_user_func_array('Adminer\lang_format', $args);