Problems with the Addons site, particularly the search interface.

Addons Site Interface and Search (addons.mozilla.org)

Location: http://www.mvps.org/dmcritchie/firefox/amo_search.htm
Home page: http://www.mvps.org/dmcritchie/firefox/firefox.htm
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I don't see anything that has been improved with the new addons, and do see a lot of things that have been made worse.

Asa Dotzler (blog) - Firefox and more: new addons site public preview "new addons site public preview",
The web dev team have just announced that the next generation addons site is now available for preview and feedback.  New features include improved l10n, a better review system, threaded discussions, a unified login for developers and users, and improved search Posted by Asa Dotzler - Jan 3, 2007   http://weblogs.mozillazine.org/asa/archives/2007/01/new_addons_site.html

There were in fact no improvements to the extensions search and the discussion below on Asa's blog degenerated one person posting 3 times wanting to bookmark their favorite search results or something to that effect.

Instead of being an improved search the Advanced Search disappeared.  [See Bug 372841 – Bring back the advanced search options from v2 to Remora    The problems with the search that existed before Remora were as follows:

[support group would like some tangible evidence of  numbers of  additional questions asked in support groups, because users can't use the Advanced Search and I presume should also include  all requests for extensions because we can't point to a url for them to conduct their own Advanced Search.]

The following items have been removed or moved from the bottom of the page, and harder to find

AMO Advanced Search Interface (#interface)

For  the "Advanced Options" that were formerly available my choices installed into my own personal search engine (using the "Add to Search Bar"  extension)  for addons went something like this:
 Category: any, Type: Extensions, App: Firefox, Platform: Windows,
    Date: Any,  Sort by: Newest, Per Page: 50
Some of the relevant portions extracted from the sort engine that is currently useless:
template="https://addons.mozilla.org/search.php?sourceid=Mozilla-search
&app=firefox&q={searchTerms}&cat=null&type=E&appfilter=firefox
&platform=5&date=null&sort=newest&perpage=50&app=firefox"
Here is an example of the new search that could be converted to a keyword shortcut for a search, but where are you going to find that show=50 means show 50 entries at time and where are you going to find out about other operands that you could include.
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/search?q=context&status=4&show=50
Due to lack of an adequate Advanced Search Interface for Extensions, I am forced to make heavier use of a Google search before using addons search (installed as a keyword shortcut named  "addons2:"  with the colon) -- I'm really trying to hit the main description page and not the older versions, discussions, and comments.
http://www.google.com/search?num=100&q=site%3Aaddons.mozilla.org
+inurl%3Afirefox+install-now+-inurl%3Arecommended
+-inurl%3Aversions+-inurl%3Aphp+%S
When doing a Google Groups Search, the usage is impossible to deal with without the "gg:fix" bookmarklet, see write-up and obtain at Bookmarklets for fixing Google Groups search.

Template Design (#template)

Some additional items that should be clearly included into fixed positions of the addon template areas as follows so people know what the extension does.  If someone does not know what the sidebar is they give the extension a zero:
definition for usage:
implementation: main context and/or link context and/or tabs/context and/or Tools menu and/or View menu and/or sidebar and/or shortcut key and/or user form where you see results: sidebar | dialog | web screen
Setting options for the extension:
Indicate where options if any are set by the user.
List of keywords: having to do the Firefox, TB, etc.,
and up to 5 additional keywords in a list of keywords should be at the bottom of the extension.  Nothing concerning an individual extension should be on the sidebar, except perhaps to include all categories and highlight the category the current extension is in.
Dependencies:
Is the extension dependent on another extension.  Are there recommended extensions that enhance usage of this extension.
Button, icon:
What does the main toolbar button, or status bar icon look like that you might see when the extension is enabled (probably not a problem as most extensions have their own symbol that is shown at addons.

Additional Things that hurt Addons (#twostepsback)

More information on addons user interface in Add-ons_2007 New Format, overall the user interface has become much worse, particularly regards to searching and image quality in general is still not good even for extensions where authors discovered that they needed (forced) to resubmit images.
 

This page was introduced on May 15, 2007. 
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