In plugins screen, searching installed plugins vs. searching for plugins to install is confusing

[ericlewis]

In the Plugins admin screen, there's some confusion I've seen for users (and now myself) in the difference between searching for installed plugins and searching for plugins to install.

I think we should collapse these two experiences. If you search for "BuddyPress," we can show results in your local install that fit that search, as well as immediately showing other plugins you can install that also fit that search criteria.

[helen]

I think at one point somewhere we had discussed having the "No plugins found." message also have a link to searching the plugin repository for that keyword. The idea of showing some results on the same screen is intriguing, although I think that would need a fair amount of UI and UX exploration. Perhaps we could do the former in the short term?

[ericlewis]

@helen that sounds like a great short-term plan.

[mordauk]

29865.patch is a rough pass at this.

[DrewAPicture]

@mordauk: Are you still interested in pursuing this? 29865.patch​ still applies.

[helen]

I think it should be two separate sentences and it's not really a question, but otherwise this seems like an easy win.

[helen]

In 35808:

Plugins: Provide a link to searching the plugin directory when no search results are found.

Many new users do not know the difference between managing installed plugins and those found in the plugin directory. This helps with discoverability. The link is not provided in multisite installs because we assume that somebody with that kind of power in a network is experienced enough not to need it. This can always be reconsidered later.

props mordauk for the initial patch.
fixes #29865.