Improving the Mod Portal Search

[vinzenz]

The mod portal search is quite bare bones at the moment. Which features would you like to see on a dedicated mod portal search page?

[Tertius]

It's very nice that you try to improve the search. Currently, it's tedious to find a mod if you can only give a description what this mod should be about, but you don't know any name and if such a mod even exists. Usually, you search for only one keyword, then browse the (lengthy) result list. If you didn't find your mod, you try a different keyword, and so on.

And:
- mods seem often not correctly tagged or categorized
- search seems fuzzy and it's not clear what fields exactly are being searched. If you search for "circulator", you get many results, but I bet no mod actually contains this word.

I'd like these features:
- no fuzzy search but exact
- in general: ability to reduce the set of matching items by giving terms to exclude.
- simple search expressions: AND and OR combinations for keyword search. I want "this" but exclude "that": "(this1 AND this2 NOT (that OR otherunwantedkeyword) ". This requires any search not being fuzzy.
- for defining a search scope, ability to select multiple categories and tags to search for, and multiple tags and categories to exclude from search. I'd like to search within tweaks and utilities, but exclude cheats.
- ability to create a private ignore list for mods: mods that show up in results often but you will never ever use. Exclude these from every result. Mostly for all these test and local use mods that show up everywhere.

It would also be nice if some kind of relevance can be used for sorting results. However, I don't know how "relevance" might be defined and how it could automatically be computed. Number of downloads is probably a factor, but also the better the match (if you give more than 1 keyword ORed) the higher the relevance.

[Deadlock989]

Prioritise mod names over everything else and give us the option to turn off fuzzy searches.

For example, if I search for "disco", only one result on the first page of results actually has the separated word "disco" in the mod's name (another has the word "Discord"). The mod I was actually looking for at the time, "Disco Science", doesn't appear until the second page. If finding mods is this difficult when you do remember the name, I'm not sure how you would go about finding things where you don't remember the name.

[_CodeGreen]

One of my main gripes I've had for a while is that it defaults to recently updated every time you search.
I would rather have it be on most downloaded, or at least remember that I clicked it, because that usually makes the more relevant mods show up first.
(There's actually no way to search by trending currently, because clicking on the trending tab clears the search and searching defaults to recently updated.)
I think the real issue is that there's not really a good way to sort by relevance in the first place, so much so that I use a discord bot that I made to search for mods that I know the name of, or at least know at least one word in it.

Speaking of the discord bot, the search feature is made for autocomplete results, and the way I've done it is as follows:
Each section is sorted by download count, and internal mods are shoved to the bottom of each section.
- Match start of title
- Match in title
- Match in start of name
- Match in name

This is a massive oversimplification of what a search algorithm should be, since it's used for an autocomplete list, but I do think this could emphasize what weights could be put on specific types of name matches.
Regardless, a major emphasis on mod titles/names would be appreciated, especially since you can't search for internal mod names at all.
(if someone searches "flib", Factorio Library doesn't show up at the top, let alone at all. EDIT: I forgot Factorio Library was an internal mod, perhaps those should be shown at the bottom instead of not at all unless you have the category whitelisted.)

Being able to whitelist/blacklist any combination of tags and/or categories would be a massive improvement.
If only one can be selected at a time, I would expect a dropdown instead of all of the options being visible at once, as it is more intuitive and reduces visual noise.

Fuzzy search can be annoying sometimes, but I think that's just because the results are not weighted. I don't mind the fuzziness, but when it gets in the way of what should be showing up at the top, that's when it becomes unhelpful.

Searching only a specific version can be limiting; If someone is searching for a mod that has existed at one point in time, they would have to click through every version in the dropdown, and that gets worse the more mods match the version, because they show up multiple times.
For example, I was trying to search for the original Ribbon Maze mod, and I didn't know what version it was in. Luckily there's not many ribbon maze mods, but I still had to click through until 0.17 to find it.
Having an "Any" field in the version dropdown would be handy.

A couple things about the current page's styling:

There's no way to go to a specific page of results, you have to click through until you get to the one you want.
Making the "..." between numbers turn into a text box upon being clicked is one potential solution.
Also, if I'm on like page 20, I don't need to see buttons for the first and last two pages of mods.
I cannot imagine a scenario where someone thinks to themselves, "I'm currently in the middle of the pages, and I want to jump to the second page of the search, not the first."
There's also buttons for next and previous page, but also buttons of those pages with their numbers on them on either side of your current page, which feels a little redundant.
If I were a first time user, I would assume the next/previous buttons took me to the first/last page, because they're on the outsides.
If that change were made, and the second-to-first/last buttons get removed, then one pair of the first/last ones could also be removed since they would be literally right next to each other.

The search box itself is quite small, which is fine most of the time, but it could be a little wider.
It's also like a pixel or two lower than the search button itself, which makes it look misaligned, even if it's done that way for a 3D artistic effect.

The amount of vertical space each mod takes up could be reduced a bit, I would like to be able to see more than four mods as once without zooming out (even less on mobile).
Without changing the formatting too much, I think the bottom bar where all of the tags are displayed could be removed entirely, and the bookmark / download buttons can be moved to inside the box with the category, last updated, Factorio version (does that need to be displayed if you're searching in a specific version?), and download count.
Tags could be viewed on the actual mod page instead.



Other than that, I don't think much else really needs to be done.
The sorting by relevance weight is the biggest thing, I would be happy if just that was added.

[Sacredanarchy]

An all mods section that can be filtered in some way would be nice. Alphabetically, category/type, author, game version, duration on portal.

[mmmPI]

My 2 cents would be for a possibility to search for dependancies/incompatibilities those are only visible from ingame currently unless explicitly added in the description by the mod authors. Many mods have tweaks or additions or compatibility addons, whose name are not always super significant and finding them from the mod they are dependant from would give direction for research when preparing a modpack for a new game.

[_CodeGreen]

My 2 cents would be for a possibility to search for dependancies/incompatibilities those are only visible from ingame currently unless explicitly added in the description by the mod authors. Many mods have tweaks or additions or compatibility addons, whose name are not always super significant and finding them from the mod they are dependant from would give direction for research when preparing a modpack for a new game.

They actually are visible, you have to go to the downloads tab of the specific mod you want to see them on

[mmmPI]

They actually are visible, you have to go to the downloads tab of the specific mod you want to see them on

Thank you i didn't know.

I still wish it is possible to search for something like mods that have one other mod as dependancy and/or (in)compatible with a third one.

[lyvgbfh]

I still wish it is possible to search for something like mods that have one other mod as dependancy and/or (in)compatible with a third one.

Something like ThunderStore's listing of "x mods depend on this mod" that links to a search with those mods? That would be nice!

[mmmPI]

Something like ThunderStore's listing of "x mods depend on this mod" that links to a search with those mods? That would be nice!

I had a look at the website but i got lost. I don't have a super precise idea, but sometimes i want to play with an overhaul mod,say i have played several game with it and i want to add some twist, from that overhaul-mod page, i can't find easily the others small tweaks/mods that other creators did around the first one.( the reverse look up compared to what the current download page is showing) Often time mod authors play with other mods themselves and make their own mod to interact with others' that they recommand, that is very helpful but not automated, authors can't keep tracks of every other authors that may want to add a tweak to their mod.

If i could search "mods that have Space Exploration as dependancy/optionnal", latest update first, then i know the mods on the pages is a curated list,they are not showing up because their description says "not compatible with Space Exploration" or "similar to Space Exploration" because the research doesn't know that and sometimes players use "SE" or "K2" or other new thing in the description and i would miss them.

There are roughly 6000 mods, i don't know if it is possible to have some sort of drop down menu where you can select a mod after typing a few letters, to launch such research, or how it could be done in practice. To me that would help to explore mods that work well together without knowing their name to discover them in a context.

[lyvgbfh]

I had a look at the website but i got lost.

Sorry, I should have illustrated to start. This is how it works on Thunderstore, the (unofficial) Risk of Rain 2 mod portal:

Viewing a mod page shows how many mods depend on a mod

Clicking the text links to a search showing which mods depend on this one (note: our 17 other search results are under "modpacks")

[mmmPI]

Viewing a mod page shows how many mods depend on a mod
Clicking the text links to a search showing which mods depend on this one (note: our 17 other search results are under "modpacks")

Thank you for you explanation, now i realize maybe my suggestion is not related with the search page but rather the mod page.

It make sense that "modpacks" are separated on the Risk of Rain mod portal. But it confused me at first not seeing what i expected.

A list of mods that depends on another mod is interesting, and it would be even more imo if it accounts for the optionnal dependancies.

A list of mods that are not compatible or a way to exclude them from the list could be interesting too i think. In order to make it easier to browse the portal once a few mods are already selected for the next game.


Edit: I have an example : https://mods.factorio.com/mod/yacp-ei-drfaux
This mod seem like it can't be found in the portal by the search, the description is short, but even using YACP or Exotic, using "any" version for factorio ,this mod doesn't show up. It has a dependancy on the other mods that it bridges though. It's probably because it's considered "internal" mod like the libraries, in this case, please allow me to tick a box to search also for "internal" mods or libraries

Edit2: It is actually possible to search for "internal" using the "category" located above the "tag", good luck making a system that would make things easy for me ...PEBKAC

[FuryoftheStars]

I think others have covered my gripes with fuzzy search, lack of advanced keyword search, etc.

[vinzenz]

Thanks for the great input everyone! Based on your suggestions, we just launched the mod portal search. You can check it out here: https://mods.factorio.com/explore


Currently, clicking 'search' on any of the front-page tabs will take you to this new site. We might integrate it more into the other pages later on.

We're also considering adding a few more features, like a date range filter for mod creation and last updated, as well as a compact view. It's also usable on mobile, except for the pagination bit which will get reworked soon.

Let us know what you think in this thread.

[RedRafe]

The new search website is sick! Adds a lot of search functonalities to refine the search. Will probably take a bit to get used to it, but so far I like that the research panels sorts the results by the original method you were searching from (most downloads, most recently updates, trending..)

Although the new search page doesn't display the "source code" hyperlink near the bookmark/download buttons, do you think it would be possible to add as well?

[Tertius]

This is great! If it comes to my personal opinion, it includes all the crucial features of my suggestions and more. It satisfies my personal search demands.

Especially great is the dynamic and immediate response and how you can disable categories and it still displays the amount of matching items for disabled categories, so you're seeing you might have missed something here.
And highlighting the matches makes you see what search terms might have cluttered your result list.
Due to the dynamic response, it's possible to iterate query terms very fast and you don't need some sophisticated search language with AND/OR that much.

Just by playing around with the options about railway and transportation stuff and and exploring without real goal, I found the Rail Signal Planner mod, something I didn't know I needed until I saw it.

My test search for circulator still gives matches. But now I see what it matches due to the highlighting: circulator matches calculator, so this is fuzzy search. It accounts for spelling errors, so it's good to have it this way.
Searching for "circulator" (in double quotes) don't result in anything as it's supposed to be, so this is searching for the exact word without fuzzy search. Having both fuzzy and non fuzzy options is good.

It's much more useful than the previous search without being overloaded. It works much more intuitively, because the result of your clicks and your input is directly and immediately visible.

[Koub]

That's an undeniable improvement in terms of UI.

I do miss the ability to check/uncheck the full column on the left part.

Like so

Group (de)select.png (50.98 KiB) Viewed 4362 times

Also a button to reset the search to the default criteria in one click would be a nice addition, instead of having to unclick everything manually after a search session.

[FuryoftheStars]

^^ What they've said.

Definitely love the changes.

[ickputzdirwech]

It’s one of the best search panels I’ve seen!

Found a small issue though: It requires a specific type of double quotes. It didn’t accept the default of my phone set to English (“). Instead I had to use the straight one ("). Maybe it could be less strict?

[vinzenz]

Wow, thanks for the nice words everyone!

Although the new search page doesn't display the "source code" hyperlink near the bookmark/download buttons, do you think it would be possible to add as well?

Good catch, we'll add this.

I do miss the ability to check/uncheck the full column on the left part.

We're thinking about adding buttons to clear tag/category selections, but we won't have buttons to like exclude all categories because this would exclude all mods ( "No category" is a category to )

Also a button to reset the search to the default criteria in one click would be a nice addition, instead of having to unclick everything manually after a search session.

To reset your search you can click on the explore tab.

Found a small issue though: It requires a specific type of double quotes. It didn’t accept the default of my phone set to English (“). Instead I had to use the straight one ("). Maybe it could be less strict?

Oh the joys of unicode, maybe we can add some double quote normalization step.