addons sort by name, and other sort options

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https://addons.mozilla.org/firefox/search/?q=tab+groups for example, with the classic desktop view there's a visible option to sort by name. A total of eight sort options.

No such option with the mobile view.

Partial workaround

Manually edit the URL, for example:

https://addons.mozilla.org/firefox/search/?q=tab+groups&sort=name

– but then the Filter results column wrongly shows that results are sorted by relevance.

┆Issue is synchronized with this Jira Task

Sep 27 '17 03:09 grahamperrin

I think this was removed from the new UI intentionally. I'm not sure the value in sorting add-ons by name; search results by name would ruin relevancy. Maybe sorting collections by name would be useful.

What's your usual use-case for sorting search results by name? This wouldn't be really difficult to add (as you discovered, under-the-hood it works, we'd just need UI and tests), but I'm not sure the value of this sort option.

Sep 30 '17 22:09 tofumatt

What's your usual use-case for sorting search results by name?

Various use cases. The most common is probably the simplest:

browsing.

(I hate things appearing disorderly. I think of A–Z, alphabetical order, as a basic requirement … YMMV, maybe it's 'cause I'm somewhat dyslexic.)

… search results by name would ruin relevancy. …

There's no easy way to say this (sorry): more often than not, I already see relevancy as ruined. Too often so poor that I treat it as a waste, a massive waste, of space. Massive because I see masses of things that are irrelevant.

More positively, I'd like to add more under Improve relevancy of search results · Issue mozilla/addons-frontend#2661 · mozilla/addons-server but (sorry) priorities are likely to be elsewhere for the next few months.

Oct 01 '17 11:10 grahamperrin

I guess if you're okay to browse through a very large result set then alphabetic order might help make you feel like you can "keep place" a bit, that makes sense to me. Thanks for the explanation, that helped! 😄

Okay, I'm sold. Understand this won't be a super high-priority bug though I think it's worth doing so I'll keep it around. It's probably a good first bug as it's mostly UI and easy tests.

Oct 01 '17 12:10 tofumatt

Actually, curiously, I'm surprised your sort=name thing worked given name is not a documented sort option for the search API.

@diox: is name not something we should rely on? Or is it just undocumentated by mistake?

Oct 01 '17 12:10 tofumatt

We're going to hold labeling this a good first bug for the moment -- if there's any documentation that we can point folks to for fixing this, that would be great.

Oct 03 '17 17:10 caitmuenster

Hi, I'm the person who asked about this in the feedback area. As long as I can use URLs to get to Newly Created and Recently Updated - which appear to work on the new interface - that's fine. But I'd really like to see, in addition to the rating, the date of creation/update alongside the rating or somewhere on the first screen you see. TY, Ed

Nov 01 '17 05:11 siffegh

@siffegh hi, thanks for joining things here in GitHub.

… date of creation/update alongside the rating or somewhere on the first screen you see …

There are a few date-related issues https://github.com/mozilla/addons-frontend/issues?utf8=%E2%9C%93&q=is%3Aissue%20is%3Aopen%20date but none for what you describe.

For this issue to remain focused on sort options, please consider creating a separate issue.

Also, if you're not already there:

Test the new look of addons.mozilla.org! - Add-ons / addons.mozilla.org - Mozilla Discourse

Thanks again 👍

Nov 02 '17 18:11 grahamperrin

@diox: is name not something we should rely on? Or is it just undocumentated by mistake?

It's somewhat reliable. The issue is that it's currently a bit wonky with add-ons providing translations for their names in multiple languages - only the english version is considered for sorting purposes. That's why I haven't documented until now, I didn't want to commit too much to it knowing this limitation and not being sure we were going to actually use it.

Nov 17 '17 11:11 diox

@jvillalobos I'd be interested in your take if this is something we should be looking to support.

Feb 06 '18 17:02 muffinresearch

I think sorting by Name makes sense, especially in cases where you end up on a search page without a query (like top rated in a category). Somewhat related, the Relevance sorting option appears in those cases, but it doesn't really make sense. Maybe Name should replace Relevance as a sorting option when there's no search string.

Feb 08 '18 23:02 jvillalobos

Maybe Name should replace Relevance as a sorting option when there's no search string.

FWIW in the API, the default sort is relevance if there is a query, or downloads if there isn't.

Mar 19 '18 13:03 diox

https://addons.mozilla.org/en-GB/firefox/search/?q=Rehost%20Image&page_size=100&type=extension&sort=name

At a glance, results do appear to be alphabetical at the head of the first page but then (for example) on the third page, there's apparent mixture (an S in the midst of P listings) –

2018-09-18 03 44 28 search results add-ons for firefox

– and from the results on the last page, I assume that sort is case sensitive.

Please: should there separate issues for either of those symptoms? p5 I guess.

Sep 18 '18 02:09 grahamperrin

Maybe sorting collections by name would be useful.

This has been requested in https://github.com/mozilla/addons/issues/13369.