948010 - [Rocketbar] Local results ranking algorithm

Status: RESOLVED WONTFIX

(Firefox OS Graveyard :: Gaia, defect)

Description

[Kevin Grandon :kgrandon]

I have been thinking of a few possible ways to rank local results against each other inside of the search results app. Proposals coming soon.

Comment 1

[Ben Francis [:benfrancis]]

We could use Frecency for this https://developer.mozilla.org/en/docs/The_Places_frecency_algorithm

If every result has a URL the system app can use the Frecency algorithm to rank local results against each other.

Comment 2

[Ben Francis [:benfrancis]]

See also, "New Frecency" https://wiki.mozilla.org/User:Jesse/NewFrecency

Comment 3

[Kevin Grandon :kgrandon]

(In reply to Ben Francis [:benfrancis] from comment #1)
> We could use Frecency for this
> https://developer.mozilla.org/en/docs/The_Places_frecency_algorithm

That seems like it could be a good option - and having a URL for every type of result would certainly be nice.

I know you guys are doing some work for a `places datastore`, I'm wondering if we should rank these against other local data sources (contacts/apps for example).

Comment 4

[Ben Francis [:benfrancis]]

(In reply to Kevin Grandon :kgrandon from comment #3)
> I know you guys are doing some work for a `places datastore`, I'm wondering
> if we should rank these against other local data sources (contacts/apps for
> example).

That's exactly what I mean by "if every result has a URL". My plan for 1.4 is to integrate the Places database with the window manager such that every URL you visit (whether part of a web site or an app) is logged and a frecency score is maintained. That way the Rocketbar may not need to query the apps API to search apps or the contacts API to search contacts at all.

In order to take the same approach for contacts we would need the contacts app to have a different URL for each contact though. Contacts is not a priority for 1.4, only apps and sites.

One downside of this approach is that you will only see results for URLs you have already visited. If you import contacts but don't view them they wouldn't appear in the results for example. If that's a problem we could experiment with additional ways of adding URLs to the Places database before they've been visited. Like when you install an app or add a contact. They'd just start with a frecency score of 0.

We could also experiment with frecency weights for installed apps and/or bookmarked URLs. If every contact has a URL then bookmarking a contact is as simple as bookmarking a URL.

Comment 5

[Kevin Grandon :kgrandon]

It turns out that local ranking is hard (duh), and we will not be doing this as an initial goal. Perhaps we will need a bug like this sometime in the future, but going to close this one out for now.