I kind of assumed, but don't really know, that the relevance came from the npm equivalent search.
Yes that is how it is sorted now, my question was really for new/additional ways.
I considered an alternative sort order using a sort key comprising
Package is deprecated ? 1 : 0 plus
Package name contains the search term ? 0 : 1 plus
Package name stripped of @[^\/]*\/ and node-red- and contrib-
Unfortunately the sort I'm playing with is not behaving the way I expected: I can't understand why 00dashboard-2 sorts above 00dashboard.
No time to play with this any more. If it worked, I'd also try it against search term "mysql"
A few package names and sort keys
pi@Zero2Pink:~ $ cat junk
01ui_clock node-red-contrib-ui-clock
00dashboard node-red-dashboard
00dashboard-2-ui-scheduler @cgjgh/node-red-dashboard-2-ui-scheduler
00dashboard-2-ui-slide-confirm @cgjgh/node-red-dashboard-2-ui-slide-confirm
00dashboard-2-ui-gauge-classic @colinl/node-red-dashboard-2-ui-gauge-classic
00dashboard-average-bars node-red-contrib-dashboard-average-bars
00mdashboard node-red-contrib-mdashboard
00dashboard @flowfuse/node-red-dashboard
pi@Zero2Pink:~ $ sort -k1 junk
00dashboard-2-ui-gauge-classic @colinl/node-red-dashboard-2-ui-gauge-classic
00dashboard-2-ui-scheduler @cgjgh/node-red-dashboard-2-ui-scheduler
00dashboard-2-ui-slide-confirm @cgjgh/node-red-dashboard-2-ui-slide-confirm
00dashboard-average-bars node-red-contrib-dashboard-average-bars
00dashboard @flowfuse/node-red-dashboard
00dashboard node-red-dashboard
00mdashboard node-red-contrib-mdashboard
01ui_clock node-red-contrib-ui-clock
Was hoping for
00dashboard @flowfuse/node-red-dashboard
00dashboard node-red-dashboard
00dashboard-2-ui-gauge-classic @colinl/node-red-dashboard-2-ui-gauge-classic
00dashboard-2-ui-scheduler @cgjgh/node-red-dashboard-2-ui-scheduler
00dashboard-2-ui-slide-confirm @cgjgh/node-red-dashboard-2-ui-slide-confirm
00dashboard-average-bars node-red-contrib-dashboard-average-bars
00mdashboard node-red-contrib-mdashboard
01ui_clock node-red-contrib-ui-clock
"Issues" aren't always negative though. The majority of Dashboard 2.0's issues are feature requests and items for planning
Good point

