Plugin search

Doing a plugin search for keyword "slideshow".
First question - how are results sorted? I can't seem to figure it out, it seems like random sort.
ZX Slideshow 2.0 appears on the list, indicating ZC versions: 1.3.8, 1.3.9, 1.5.0, 1.5.1
Click on it, title is ZX Slideshow, release 3.0.0, ZC version 1.5.8

Searching for "one page checkout"
One-Page Checkout (One Page Checkout) v1.0.0
ZC versions: 1.5.4, 1.5.5

The listing page seems to be pulling data from the very first release, instead of the latest. Anyone searching for these plugins might think it's not compatible with their cart and just leave without clicking.

Feature request: allow authors of a plugin to update compatible ZC version. For example, ZX Slideshow v3.0.0 is compatible with 1.5.8+, including 2.2.2, and the only way to indicate that is to submit a new release?

plugin search... hmmm...

i search for helcim.

i search for payments.

from what i can gather, we are only showing the top 8 results for any plugin search.

how those are weighted seems.... i can not explain it at the moment, and one could only make pure conjecture.

it is interesting how on the search results page, there is a recent date corresponding to what looks like the import or go live date of the new ZC site. but when clicks on the plugin link, the actual date the plugin gets loaded is there.

but the idea that the date of the plugin does not seem used in the weighted results is not unexpected, at least for me.

google became a billion dollar company starting with search; and many a SEO became very wealthy by getting clients results to appear on page 1 or the first results of a google search. here in the ZC, how we rank plugin contributors, plugins and forum participants is curious to say the least.

Investigating

Feature request: allow authors of a plugin to update compatible ZC version. For example, ZX Slideshow v3.0.0 is compatible with 1.5.8+, including 2.2.2, and the only way to indicate that is to submit a new release?

At the moment you would need to ask a moderator to do that.

Might consider it, but then worry about feature creep and rewriting history

wilt:

Feature request: allow authors of a plugin to update compatible ZC version. For example, ZX Slideshow v3.0.0 is compatible with 1.5.8+, including 2.2.2, and the only way to indicate that is to submit a new release?

At the moment you would need to ask a moderator to do that.

Might consider it, but then worry about feature creep and rewriting history

As if moderators are not busy enough... 😉

Feature creep and rewriting history? But why? All you would allow is modifying compatible ZC versions, literally nothing else. And it would be limited to the user who submitted the last version. For example, Email Archive Manager (https://www.zen-cart.com/plugins/email-address-exporter-vb6) - although it has multiple releases by different users, only the latest version should be editable and only by the author of that version. In this case, only dbltoe would be able to update compatible versions.

Reason behind this: a user looks at a plugin and sees it's compatible with an older version of Zen Cart, but not with what they're using and walk away thinking it's obsolete and incompatible. They don't necessarily know it's compatible with the latest version. As the author of the plugin, I (probably) do and would not mind adjusting it. Why push this to moderators who basically need to await for an email from the author just to tick some boxes?

Oh wow, wilt! Brilliant, thank you!

Although search issues haven't been resolved yet, I can see you've added the exact feature I had asked for - plugin authors can now update the latest release of their plugin and adjust compatible Zen Cart versions! Absolute perfection!

Keep up the great work, I'm sure the search functionality is still in progress! 🙂

balihr:

Oh wow, wilt! Brilliant, thank you!

Although search issues haven't been resolved yet, I can see you've added the exact feature I had asked for - plugin authors can now update the latest release of their plugin and adjust compatible Zen Cart versions! Absolute perfection!

Keep up the great work, I'm sure the search functionality is still in progress! 🙂

No Problem

I have updated the scoring for plugin search but still seems a bit off
Will post the scoring algorithm here so other s can comment,

I'm also working on some code to prune the plugin releases. This will be a "soft" prune, so we can pull stuff back if it's over zealous

Have done some further updates to the plugin search scoring.
The mechanics/scoring

1. Cast a wide net. The driver grabs up to SEARCH_PRELOAD_LIMIT (40)
   plugin release documents that match the query words. That's not the final
   order, it's "these 40 are roughly relevant".

2. Group releases back into plugins. One plugin has many releases, each
   indexed separately, so the matched releases are collapsed by plugin_id and
   every active release for those plugins is reloaded.

3. Pick one "face" per plugin. For each plugin the canonical release =
   the newest version (the same one the plugin page shows). All scoring and the
   displayed version / ZC compatibility use that release, so a result never
   shows some random old release the engine happened to match.

4. Score each plugin. Add up:

   Signal	Points
   Query words vs. plugin name	weight ×12
   Query words vs. description or release changelog, whichever is stronger	weight ×3 / ×2
   Query words vs. canonical release version	weight ×4
   *Downloads bonus total across all releases	up to +40 (log10-scaled)
   Recency bonus how recently the canonical release was approved	up to +55 (age tiers)
   Encapsulation bonus canonical release is an encapsulated plugin	flat +25

   The "query words vs. a field" part (scoreText) rewards closeness: field
   equals the word = 8, starts with it = 6, appears as a whole word = 5,
   appears as a substring = 3 then multiplied by the field weight above.
   It does not count occurrences repeating a word in one field scores the
   same as saying it once (per-field cap of 11 × weight per token). description
   and changelog are both author free text, so they share one budget: only the
   stronger of the two counts, and pasting the same keywords into both can't
   stack.

5. Sort and trim. Order by total score; break ties by release recency, then
   downloads, then plugin id (stable). Show the top 8. There is no "see
   more" pagination.

The 40 is a ceiling on matches, not a sample of the corpus. The driver
only ever returns documents that contain the query terms, so a plugin table of
thousands is irrelevant what matters is how many rows match one query. The
ceiling only bites when more than 40 rows genuinely match, and what the kept
40 contain then depends on the driver:

• Meilisearch returns matches already ordered by its own ranking rules
  (words, typo tolerance, proximity, attribute a hit in plugin_name
  outranks one in changelog exactness), so the kept 40 are the engine's best
  40, strongest-field matches first.

The PHP re-rank (step 4) only reorders the retrieved candidates; it cannot
recover a row that missed the cut.

Net effect: a name match dominates, a well-described plugin beats a bare one,
and among similar text matches the recently-updated, encapsulated, popular plugin
wins but the bonuses are capped so they nudge rather than override a strong
text match.

One thing that is missing

the zc version is not currently indexed in Meilisearch

So searching for "slideshow 2.2.2" doesn't bump any result that matches a zc version.
This is a bit of a gap, but ill need a re-index for Meilisearch which i may leave tll after the prune.

wilt:

One thing that is missing

the zc version is not currently indexed in Meilisearch

So searching for "slideshow 2.2.2" doesn't bump any result that matches a zc version.
This is a bit of a gap, but ill need a re-index for Meilisearch which i may leave tll after the prune.

This is really needed. And I would even add it as a filter. And it should also influence scores so we don't get plugins for ZC v1.3.9 as top results unless asked for.

A very interesting way of searching and scoring the results.

Some suggestions to consider:

1. definitely include compatible versions into search.
2. add much more weight to plugins compatible with latest ZC version
3. add negative weight for plugins not showing compatibility with 2.x
4. remove Downloads Bonus - old plugins have a significantly higher number of downloads because ZC was much more popular back in the days. Current audience is much smaller meaning plugins get less downloads, which then results in promoting old plugins over new ones
5. show top 20 results, not just 8. It might be watered down results, but it also gives more options and possibly includes plugins that got lower score due to algorithm, but in reality are more relevant (using the example by @carlwhat for "payments" where you're showing AsianPay for v1.3.7 but not helcim for v2.1.0)

If the search page could have it's own input field with filters, that would be fantastic. Let's say you search for "payments" and you land on the current search page. If your search type is "plugin_release", you get a search input field on top allowing you to search again, but this time with advanced checkbox options (filters): compatible ZC version, encapsulated (maybe more, can't think of anything yet). Kind of like ZC's advanced_search page...

wow.

big big improvement wilt! bravo.

with regards to some of the other suggestions, in general i am not a fan of filters. 1 search field; put what you want in there, and give the most relevant results. but i can see how others like this filtering idea.

with regards to weighting, i think you have done a great job. search results seem so much relevant.

i have not dug too deep into your weights, but a few cursory searches indicate the massive upgrade between the old forum searches and what we have now.

again, great job. thanks.

I think it would also help if you added a small HR or border box to the Latest Plugins/Addons list.

Just a little bit of scrolling leaves you confused as to what goes with what.

something like:

li.grid.gap-1 {
box-sizing: border-box;
border-color: #d8dce2;
border: 1px solid;
padding: 2px;
}

dbltoe:

I think it would also help if you added a small HR or border box to the Latest Plugins/Addons list.

Just a little bit of scrolling leaves you confused as to what goes with what.

something like:

li.grid.gap-1 {
box-sizing: border-box;
border-color: #d8dce2;
border: 1px solid;
padding: 2px;
}

Done

Ok. Have spent the weekend working on the plugin search.

First the header search. No change to the scoring here and still just returns 8 results

But adds a link to the new plugin search on the main plugins page

this search uses the same scoring for the "best match" unless you change the "Sort By" method
This returns a paginated result set

wilt:

Ok. Have spent the weekend working on the plugin search.

Bloody brilliant! What an amazing improvement!

I really like the "advanced search", although would like to see it more prominent in the initial results page - it's really easy to miss. Perhaps move it out of the table and turn it into a smaller CTA button?

The scoring algorithm still needs a few more touches: https://www.zen-cart.com/search?q=checkout&type=plugin_release
"Checkout Amazon Style" for ZC 1.3.7 is showing, but there's no mention of "One-Page Checkout". However, OPC shows as second result on the Search Plugins page: https://www.zen-cart.com/plugins/search?q=checkout

IMO, anything that doesn't support ZC 2.x should not be listed in the initial results. If there are 0 results, simply show a message like "No plugins matching your request were found to be compatible with modern Zen Cart versions. If you wish to search legacy plugins, please click here and use the Plugin Search facility". If anyone wants to search for obsolete modules, they can go to the advanced search and get their results. New users will not be interested in seeing plugins for a 15+ years old version.

On the subject of authors being able to change certain settings...

I have a couple of recent updates that don't show the support thread, the correct GitHub repository, etc.

Care was taken to enter that data under the old system. The new update path does not have a form field for either.

I would think those two are even more important to the user than the supported Zen Cart Version.

I really like what the plugin search has become!

But it seems there are still few quirks:

When searching (using plugin search field) with this string 'ZX SEO Master', which is the exact name of the plugin, I got no result. If I use the main search field, I got it in the plugin release category.

pilou2:

I really like what the plugin search has become!

But it seems there are still few quirks:

When searching (using plugin search field) with this string 'ZX SEO Master', which is the exact name of the plugin, I got no result. If I use the main search field, I got it in the plugin release category.

Yeah there was some drift beween how the different searches worked. Have centralised the code so should be better now.

wilt:

pilou2:

I really like what the plugin search has become!

But it seems there are still few quirks:

When searching (using plugin search field) with this string 'ZX SEO Master', which is the exact name of the plugin, I got no result. If I use the main search field, I got it in the plugin release category.

Yeah there was some drift beween how the different searches worked. Have centralised the code so should be better now.

Yes it works fine now.

Thanks, you really did a good job with the plugin section, it is another world compare to the old site!