Package Search: Short term solution

[tnabtaf]

Description

I get the monthly reports from Algolia on what searches users perform on the conda.org site. A large number of failed searches are for package names.

We should make it easier for people landing at conda.org to search for packages.

This issue is about what we can do to help searchers in the short-term. Ideally what we do now won't take much effort to implement. See issue #173 for what we can do in the longer term.

Tasks

• Discuss options
• Decide on solution, or decide not to pursue this now.
• Implement solution

Discussion

There are a number of sites out there now that search subsets of public conda channels. In the short term we could provide just a list of links to those sites. The conda forum takes this approach by implementing a Packages drop down in it's top menu. That dropdown links to search pages for anaconda.org, conda-forge, prefix.dev, and bioconda.

[jakirkham]

Would just note that searching for packages is part of the problem. The other part is how to install them, which gets particularly interesting if users mix channels. Something to consider