The TypeSearch website is down

[noahbrenner]

The TypeSearch website, linked to from the README, has been down for months.

The top level README.md links to https://microsoft.github.io/TypeSearch/. That page exists, but it uses an unconditional JavaScript redirect (assigning to window.location) to https://www.typescriptlang.org/dt/search. The latter page responds with a 404 status and returns the following plain text content:

The resource you are looking for has been removed, had its name changed, or is temporarily unavailable.

I've been seeing that message for months, maybe a year, so it doesn't look like a temporary issue at this point. I'd love to see the TypeSearch tool accessible again. If this repo is the wrong place to report the issue, let me know where the appropriate place would be and I'll be happy to open an issue there instead.

[stof]

The 404 has been replaced by a placeholder page looking like that:

[noahbrenner]

@stof Thanks for updating that page, and sorry for my late response!

While that's definitely an improvement over a 404, it doesn't quite address the same issue. The linked blog post is about how the npm registry can display that a package has typings "published inside a package and specified using the types or typings key in the package's package.json" (this is about types included in the same npm package, not types installed separately via a @types/* package).

The point of DefinitelyTyped and the old TypeSearch is to provide/search for types that are not provided as part of the npm package itself. Is there another way of searching for a @types/* package to go with an npm package that doesn't publish its own types? If so, that would be a better resource to link to from that page. If not, I'd love to see functionality similar to the old TypeSearch page implemented and hosted there again.

[stof]

The npm registry also supports linking to the associated @types/* package actually.

[noahbrenner]

That's great! However, the blog page linked to from the updated TypeSearch page explicitly says (emphasis mine):

When this declaration file is published inside a package and specified using the types or typings key in the package's package.json, the npm registry will display that the package has available bindings.

I'd suggest either updating that language to clarify that the referenced types can also be in a separate package, or linking to a different page that has that complete information.

[stof]

the link is to the blog post announcing the feature. So it describes the feature at the time of the announcement (e.g. in December 2020). The feature has been extended in the meantime.

[noahbrenner]

In theory, it makes sense to link to the first announcement of the feature. However, the people I'd expect are most likely to go to the old TypeSearch page are:

1. People who are Looking for a @types/* package...
2. ...for an npm package that doesn't bundle its own types...
3. ...and doesn't mention its corresponding @types package in its README.
4. And those people likely don't already know that the npm package can reference types from a different npm package.

For those people, it would be confusing to read "This page is no longer necessary." and see a link that seems to contradict that statement ("published inside a package"). So I don't think the current https://www.typescriptlang.org/dt/search page answers the question that visiting users implicitly have.

I think that could be improved by either including text on the page itself with the information about the updated use of the types/typings key in package.json or linking to a different announcement/changelog/doc that describes the feature of referencing a separate package.