Improving the Mod Portal Search

[NotRexButCaesar]

The new search should replace all the other panels in my opinion: instead of having the trending &c. icons below "explore", just replace the icons above with various ways to sort your search using the current explore interface.

New Search Mockup mods.factorio.png (111.09 KiB) Viewed 2844 times

[Nemoricus]

Right now I'm having an issue where the sort features don't seem to work as expected. I've attached a few pictures where I've tried to sort the portal by different options and the results remain displayed in the same order. Is there a bug here?

[vinzenz]

Right now I'm having an issue where the sort features don't seem to work as expected. I've attached a few pictures where I've tried to sort the portal by different options and the results remain displayed in the same order. Is there a bug here?

Sorry for the late response, I'm just now getting back to mod portal work.

The ranking of search results gives the highest priority to matching your query terms. As soon as you have more than one word in your query this likely outweighs the sort order for the first page of results. For Downloads, Recently updated and Trending we use the default ranking described here: https://www.meilisearch.com/docs/learn/ ... /relevancy

For Relevance we use this ranking

Code: Select all

["exactness", "words", "typo", "proximity", "attribute", "sort", "downloads_count:desc"]

How would you expect the sort order to work when using longer queries like "Resource Marker". E.g. when sorting by "Recently updated" would you prefer to have results without the word "Marker" ranked higher if they have a more recent update than results that match both words but are older? Currently sort order is more like a tie breaker between similar ranking results.

[Nemoricus]

How would you expect the sort order to work when using longer queries like "Resource Marker". E.g. when sorting by "Recently updated" would you prefer to have results without the word "Marker" ranked higher if they have a more recent update than results that match both words but are older? Currently sort order is more like a tie breaker between similar ranking results.

I would expect the sorting to prioritize on the option I chose. IE, if I am sorting by update date, the one with the most recent update date comes first, period. This is particularly important when I am specifically looking for recently updated mods, or if I'm looking to see which one is most popular based on download count.

Having relevance get priority over the search option I chose is confusing and gets in the way of searching based on the criteria I'm actually interested in. Especially since "Relevance" is itself a search option, and if I've chosen a different option, it's because I don't think "Relevance" is the option that best serves my needs at that time.

It'd be nice if I could prioritize those criteria individually, but as it is, there's just the set search options.

[_CodeGreen]

It's almost impossible to search for multiple words at once currently, for the example "Resource Marker" I would want both of those words to have the same priority in a match, so if something was most recently updated that had just the word "resource", that would show up first, and then if the second most recently updated thing had just the word "marker" I would want to see that second. We already have the relevance tab to get results that are *most* relevant to our queries, recently updated and downloads should focus more on their respective sort orders rather than result relevance. Also: As previously mentioned in this thread, I think it's time for the different tabs to be merged into one tab since the Explore tab covers all of it now (besides highlighted mods).

[vinzenz]

I updated the index settings for the explore page.

- Swapped the priority between name and title matches, previously name matches had the highest priority which caused LogisticTrainNetwork to be ranked lower than e.g LtnManager when searching for LTN.

- Updated the ranking order for Downloads, Recently updated and Trending to use sort order as the highest ranking metric

Index settings for "Relevance"

Code: Select all

"searchableAttributes": ["title", "slug", "owner_username", "summary"],
"rankingRules": ["exactness", "words", "typo", "proximity", "attribute", "sort", "downloads_count:desc"],

Index settings for the other options

Code: Select all

"searchableAttributes": ["title", "slug", "owner_username", "summary"],
"rankingRules": ["sort", "words", "typo", "proximity", "attribute", "exactness"],

You can read more about ranking rules here: https://www.meilisearch.com/docs/learn/ ... /relevancy

The ranking rules are configured per index and IIRC can't be overridden per search request, so adding them to the explore page isn't feasible I'm afraid.

[Nemoricus]

Looks like things are working much more like I expected now. Thanks!

[SpeckledFleebeedoo]

Is Recently Updated supposed to be the default sort order? I found myself having to go through multiple pages to find anything somewhat relevant to my search before I noticed it was sorting by Recently Updated.

[vinzenz]

Is Recently Updated supposed to be the default sort order? I found myself having to go through multiple pages to find anything somewhat relevant to my search before I noticed it was sorting by Recently Updated.

Did you start your search on the mod portal front page? It shows recently updated mods, so searching there takes you to the explore page with "Recently Updated" sort order. I guess that it's not very intuitive and with the new ranking can be confusing. It's good point for the frontpage rework

[Xorimuth]

Is Recently Updated supposed to be the default sort order? I found myself having to go through multiple pages to find anything somewhat relevant to my search before I noticed it was sorting by Recently Updated.

Agreed. I like the front page default view being “Recently updated” but every single time I search then have to remember to switch to “Relevance”, which is which annoying.

[SpeckledFleebeedoo]

I did indeed start on the front page. Having the results after a search be sorted by recently updated is extremely unintuitive. Seeing recently updated mods is not what I use the search bar for.

[Bilka]

I like that the search bar on the recently updated page now finally sorts by recently updated. One of my use cases is to see mods that modify a specific mod and if they recently updated. Now I can just search for the mod name and find that.

[FuryoftheStars]

It is good that you can sort searches by recently updated. I just question the merits behind making it the default. I don't think a lot of people are going to realize this and it could burry the results they're looking for. Both methods I think have their pluses and minuses, but I think I do lean a bit more toward the expected relevant sorting as the default.

[-DeadlyKitten]

I previously posted a bug report on the mod search portal and was directed to repost it here

Bug report:

the search bar on https://mods.factorio.com/ does not always pull up the right mod at the top.

examples:
search "Milestones" and the top result is chinese (the mod "Milestones" is in slot 3)
search "Spidertron Enhancements" and the mod "Spidertron Enhancements" is not even on screen

fix?
the search should probably put more weigh on results with distinct words instead of more instances of the same word, it should also probably put more weight behind matches in the title and in the proportion of the document spent on the searched word

Full discussion: viewtopic.php?f=189&t=113485

Edit: after skimming this discussion and reading the other discussion, I think this may be an issue with the fact the the default sort order is "recently updated" instead of having a default of "Relevence" which would be the expected sort order if the user has not manually changed it

[Xorimuth]

I like that the search bar on the recently updated page now finally sorts by recently updated. One of my use cases is to see mods that modify a specific mod and if they recently updated. Now I can just search for the mod name and find that.

Interesting. Whilst I like that the home page is "Recently updated", I have never once wanted my search to be sorted by "Recently updated", and it annoys me every time I search, wonder why I'm not getting what I searched for, then click on "Relevance".

[Hares]

First of all, sort by relevance first by default (not by updated date).
Secondly, prioritize fields to search in the following order: title -> tags -> short description -> long description

[curiosity]

Secondly, prioritize fields to search in the following order: title -> tags -> short description -> long description

And mod name above them all.

[Hares]

Secondly, prioritize fields to search in the following order: title -> tags -> short description -> long description

And mod name above them all.

That's what I called title.

[curiosity]

That's what I called title.

So you don't want the actual title searched, or what?

[Stringweasel]

Is Recently Updated supposed to be the default sort order? I found myself having to go through multiple pages to find anything somewhat relevant to my search before I noticed it was sorting by Recently Updated.

I also get frustrated with the search sort order to be Recently Updated almost every time I use search. I search for something then I care about relevancy, and almost never the last updated date. Not some "redux forked continued fixed improved" mod, which is usually at the top.

I do like that it shows Recently Updated as the home page though.