Improve plugin search on installed plugins page

[enej]

If you have lots of plugins installed trying to find one in the installed plugin page is not quick. The search box is quite slow ( requires a page refresh ).

Adding some JavaScript that transforms the current search box into a quickfind box would help solve this problem.

As the user types a keyword the JavaScript searched across the displayed text for the plugin, only displaying the plugins that contain that keyword.

[enej]

Inline JavaScript on the plugins page.

[johnbillion]

"Plugin Filter" plugin

[johnbillion]

This is neat and I've previously written a plugin to do a very similar thing (plugin-filter.php​). It makes searching much, much faster.

One consideration that needs taking into account is that the plugins screen has pagination, although it is set to a high value by default. It does mean that if someone has lowered the value then they may not find plugins they're expecting to find.

[enej]

Incomplete plugins quicksearch..

[enej]

Hi John

Do you think this feature is something that might end up in core?

The latest patch I submitted contains:

• Search for the plugin name and the description only. Since in the previous patch and your plugin the search looks at everything. So if you search for edit it would return all plugins instead of finding something like EditFlow. It would be better if it could search for plugin authors as well. The regular plugin search does search for plugin authors. But it also searches html. So if you search 'strong' it will return all the plugins that have something bolded in the description as well. I will submit a separate ticket and patch for that.
• The patch also tries to take into account for plugins that have been selected by the user. It keeps them shown even though they might not match the users selection. Since when someone selects a plugin they most likely want to preforms a bulk action. The search fails if you select everything. Also it doesn't hide the plugin if it is not part of search results and is unselected.
• If no plugins are found it displays the same no plugins found message as regular search.

What this patch doesn't have.

• Right now the patch does check if the page has pagination elements but it doesn't do an ajax call to the backend implemented. Also do we want to have search results paginated as well?
• This features could should also be implemented for the WordPress network.
• Also the JavaScript is currently inline. Should it be its own file or added to one of the existing WordPress JavaScript admin files?

What I am not sure about is would it be best to develop this as a plugin and the try to do a patch to merge in to core? Or is it best to try to do a patch that gets merged into core right away? Right now I am trying to keep things simple by having the patch only modify one file.

Also will this change require a JavaScript unit test and a PHP Unit test?

Cheers
Enej

[lukecavanagh]

I can work on a patch refresh.

[lukecavanagh]

Just a shame the search could not be this fast.

​https://wordpress.algolia.com/

[dingo_bastard]

Replying to lukecavanagh:

Just a shame plugin search could not be this fast.

​https://wordpress.algolia.com/

Wow! Thanks a lot for this. Can't this be implemented in the wordpress.org, or in the wp core? The sorting of the plugins helps a lot when you need to decide between dozens or more similar plugins.

[arvindsinghu]

hi guys , i found some thing , i think we can work on this to resolve this

www.yourwebsite.xyz/wp-admin/plugins.php?s=search-here&plugin_status=all

repacing search-here :- by name of plugin to be found

[pbearne]

Will the plugin get updated as part of the new admin?