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[drmimosa]

Here is another idea I had this morning:

Search behavior (upper right hand box in standard view) defaults to search of full library.

Right now, it only searches what is active in the main box. For me, this is not intuitive. Most of the time I want to find a media file from search, fast. For example, say you have a default installation of MC. The opening screen is set to Options>Startup>Location>Interface:Start. Then you type the name of a song, movie, or picture in the upper right box, one you know is in the library.

Nothing happens.

Instead, you currently have to select a view on the left before any search results appear. Also, you can't search movies when in a music view, or pictures from a video view, etc.

A full library search function (enabled by default) would making finding media files a lot faster, for both simple and complex setups.

Maybe there is a way to do this right now that I'm not aware of. Thanks for considering this request!

[JimH]

... you currently have to select a view on the left before any search results appear. Also, you can't search movies when in a music view, or pictures from a video view, etc.

A full library search function (enabled by default) would making finding media files a lot faster, for both simple and complex setups.

I agree.  I always have to do it twice.

[RoderickGI]

Instead, you currently have to select a view on the left before any search results appear. Also, you can't search movies when in a music view, or pictures from a video view, etc.

A full library search function (enabled by default) would making finding media files a lot faster, for both simple and complex setups.

I agree.  I always have to do it twice.

Oh no, don't change the way that works. It would break my workflow completely. I use the search within a View ALL the time, and it is logical to expect the search to only work on what is within the view.

I have nearly 30,000 audio files, and just less than 2,000 movie files. I don't want to see results from my audio files when I am searching for a movie. The list could be huge! I would have to refine the search in a similar way to what the View is already doing to find what I wanted, which means typing [Media Sub Type]=movie in every movie search. No. Just no.

Of course, if the search function can be modified so that when no View is selected, it searches the whole Library, I could live with that. But you might find you actually don't like the result. In total I have over 37,000 files in my Library. Search for "Love" in that; 2307 hits! A big list to scroll through to find what I want. Not to mention most of the display formats with mixed media types is a mess.


If you want a full library search to be available at startup, create a View that is not restricted at all and have MC start at that location. Of course that doesn't work perfectly now. You may need to allow View creation under the Start group for example, so you can specify starting in the Start location and automatically select the one View under there or something. Or enhance the Start location so that it can specify a particular View, instead of just a group.

Perhaps if a search criteria is entered but no View is selected, retain the criteria until a View is selected, so that it doesn't have to be entered again.

But whatever you do, don't break the existing "search within a View" functionality. That would be disastrous.

[drmimosa]

Yes I totally understand that it isn't the best solution for every library.

For me, I'd prefer it to work like a Google search on the library, especially when I'm in Playing Now and Start screens.

Maybe the behavior is something that can be specified in options, then universal search vs view search could be a toggled behavior.

[flac.rules]

Yes I totally understand that it isn't the best solution for every library.

For me, I'd prefer it to work like a Google search on the library, especially when I'm in Playing Now and Start screens.

Maybe the behavior is something that can be specified in options, then universal search vs view search could be a toggled behavior.

Yeah, that would work better for me as well. I know it's not exactly a "clean" solution, but i think i would actually prefer 2 search bar, one "from here" and one "search all" (or mayby a drop down menu to the right of the searchbar where you could choose)

[dtc]

But whatever you do, don't break the existing "search within a View" functionality. That would be disastrous.

I agree. It would be counter intuitive to be looking at a view and have a search operate on the whole library. I have a view that has all my audio files in it and I can search within that if I want a full search.

Note that Panel does a search of the entire library, independent of the current view. I think that is inconsistent with the normal operation of MC and should be changed to search the current view, the same way MC does normally.

[blgentry]

I think a toggle makes sense.  Especially if it can be bound to a keyboard short cut that works *while focused* in the search box.  For example <Tab>.

Type some search terms.  See results.  Realize they are not the ones you want.  Press Tab.  Now you see the other search results.  Tab again returns you to the original.  So Tab becomes the toggle key for Global search results or View based search results.  It should probably "stick" until you change it via Tab or the dropdown menu on the search box.

Just an idea.

Brian.

[audioriver]

Options for adding a "Global Search" mode would be extremely useful for me, and many others I suspect.

[~OHM~]

Oh no, don't change the way that works. It would break my workflow completely. I use the search within a View ALL the time, and it is logical to expect the search to only work on what is within the view.

But whatever you do, don't break the existing "search within a View" functionality. That would be disastrous.

I agree

I think a toggle makes sense.  Especially if it can be bound to a keyboard short cut that works *while focused* in the search box.  For example <Tab>.

Type some search terms.  See results.  Realize they are not the ones you want.  Press Tab.  Now you see the other search results.  Tab again returns you to the original.  So Tab becomes the toggle key for Global search results or View based search results.  It should probably "stick" until you change it via Tab or the dropdown menu on the search box.

Just an idea.

Brian.

Great idea!

[RD James]

I also find searching inside a view to be useful - though I find search in JRiver to be quite frustrating overall.
Hitting CTRL+F has unpredictable results: you have no idea which pane it is going to be searching in, and half the time it will change the view I'm looking at for no apparent reason instead of searching inside the current view. Always seems to pick my "New Albums" view for some reason.
Similar to how the tagging pane was overhauled recently, it would be good if search could receive a facelift and provide richer results like you get in iTunes, Spotify etc.

[Llannis]

Maybe the drop down menu would be the best solution, because it could satisfy everybody's needs.

What I miss the most is the ability to search among the playlists discarding those that don't match my query. This could be added as well at the drop down menu, or as a standalone field just over the playlists menu.

[blgentry]

I also find searching inside a view to be useful - though I find search in JRiver to be quite frustrating overall.
Hitting CTRL+F has unpredictable results: you have no idea which pane it is going to be searching in, and half the time it will change the view I'm looking at for no apparent reason instead of searching inside the current view. Always seems to pick my "New Albums" view for some reason.

Is this somehow different than typing in the search bar at the top right corner?  That search bar has never done anything strange for me.  My quick test just now with control-F just took me to that bar and then searched within my current view. 

Similar to how the tagging pane was overhauled recently, it would be good if search could receive a facelift and provide richer results like you get in iTunes, Spotify etc.

Richer?  What do you mean?  I suspect you mean some kind of meta-search that uses external sources or does something "fuzzy".  What functionality are you looking for?  To me, one of the great strengths of MC is that it's searches are *almost* instant.  Anything that made that slower would be a negative in my mind.

Brian.

[marko]

Add me to the 'please don't make this exclusively global' camp. I have a list, I know it's in there somewhere, I type in the search field, and there it is.

If I'm not sure, or just want the entire library searched, I switch to a view that lists the entire library and search in there instead. Simples.

Last time I checked, MC did not ship with an "All Media" group in the tree. I know they're simple to create, but I've often thought that there should be one there by default.

[RoderickGI]

Last time I checked, MC did not ship with an "All Media" group in the tree. I know they're simple to create, but I've often thought that there should be one there by default.

In addition to this, it should be possible to specify this new location in the "Options > Startup > Startup Interface > Location". I have a "Tools" group I created and it is not possible to specify that location to start in.

It should also be possible to specify a specific View within any Group as the start location. Basically, a Default Group and Default View to start in.

The start location should also be used when a Library is loaded, rather than just when MC is started. For example, I start a MC Client on my Workstation PC without loading the previous Server Library because I often wish to use a local Library. But when I load the MC Server Library I would like it to start with a set of views in tabs. Yes, I can Save and Load a View with multiple tabs, but I would like a default set of tabs to load. That doesn't happen now. If "Last Location" is selected only the one tab is shown in the last location used.

In fact, it may make more sense to make it possible to load a saved set of tab views when any Library is loaded, in addition to the "Startup Interface > Location" functionality. Or change that setting so that it can either load a location or load a saved set of tabs with Views.


If all the above was done it would be easy to have an "All Media" Group in which MC started, and a tab set that included an "All Media" View, which MC first displayed by default. Then a search would indeed search the whole library, on that default View.

[RD James]

Is this somehow different than typing in the search bar at the top right corner?  That search bar has never done anything strange for me.  My quick test just now with control-F just took me to that bar and then searched within my current view.

Yes, it only happens when I hit CTRL+F, clicking the search bar works as expected. Since search is a keyboard-focused command, I instinctively hit CTRL+F every time though.

Richer?  What do you mean?  I suspect you mean some kind of meta-search that uses external sources or does something "fuzzy".  What functionality are you looking for?  To me, one of the great strengths of MC is that it's searches are *almost* instant.  Anything that made that slower would be a negative in my mind.

iTunes displays search results in groups like albums, artists, tracks. Results display thumbnails, and are interactive. You can click on the artist name to then show all albums by that artist. Clicking on any of the thumbnails will play that item directly.
It's easier to see it for yourself than it is to describe.

[blgentry]

Yes, it only happens when I hit CTRL+F, clicking the search bar works as expected. Since search is a keyboard-focused command, I instinctively hit CTRL+F every time though.

Weird.  You should start a thread with specifics.  If it's reproducible, you'd think they would want to fix that.

iTunes displays search results in groups like albums, artists, tracks. Results display thumbnails, and are interactive. You can click on the artist name to then show all albums by that artist. Clicking on any of the thumbnails will play that item directly.

So you're really saying that you want a whole new way of displaying search results.  I'm surprised you continue to use MC.  You seem entirely dissatisfied with much of it's core functionality.

Brian.

[lepa]

There is some strange logic when using ctrl+f.

If I'm in my videos views and press ctrl+f it jumps to AUDIO node to execute search frome there.
ctrl+e search works as expected and always stays  in the same node.

In more detail if I'm VIDEO, movies or concerts node then node to be seached is not changed. However if I'm deeper in decades or artist nodes (inside VIDEO) then focus is moved to AUDIO when doing ctrl+f.

AUDIO (Group)                    --> ctrl+f --> do the search from HERE
..Albums by date (View)       --> ctrl+f --> do the search from HERE
....[year] (Category)            --> ctrl+f --> goes to do search from AUDIO
VIDEO (Group)                    --> ctrl+f --> do the search from HERE
..movies (View)                   --> ctrl+f --> do the search from HERE
....[decades] (Category)       --> ctrl+f --> goes to do search from AUDIO
..concerts (View)                 --> ctrl+f --> do the search from HERE
....[artist] (Category)           --> ctrl+f --> goes to do search from AUDIO

Currently there isn't any difference doing ctrl+e or ctrl+f if you are in group or view node besides that jump to AUDIO search even from VIDEOS group. This was changed to this years ago.. I think it mght not be that MC jumps specifically to AUDIO but to whatever Group which is first (top group).


I think it should work is like this:
ctrl+e -> search from currently selected node as it does already(be it group/view/category).
ctrl+f -> search from the currently selected Group (AUDIO or VIDEO here)

So like this:
AUDIO (Group)                    --> ctrl+f --> do the search from AUDIO
..Albums by date (View)       --> ctrl+f --> do the search from AUDIO
....[year] (Category)            --> ctrl+f --> do the search from AUDIO
VIDEO (Group)                    --> ctrl+f --> do the search from VIDEO
..movies (View)                   --> ctrl+f --> do the search from VIDEO
....[decades] (Category)       --> ctrl+f --> do the search from VIDEO
..concerts (View)                 --> ctrl+f --> do the search from VIDEO
....[artist] (Category)           --> ctrl+f --> do the search from VIDEO

ctrl+e already works like this
AUDIO (Group)                    --> ctrl+e --> do the search from HERE
..Albums by date (View)       --> ctrl+e --> do the search from HERE
....[year] (Category)            --> ctrl+e --> do the search from HERE
VIDEO (Group)                    --> ctrl+e --> do the search from HERE
..movies (View)                   --> ctrl+e --> do the search from HERE
....[decades] (Category)       --> ctrl+e --> do the search from HERE
..concerts (View)                 --> ctrl+e --> do the search from HERE
....[artist] (Category)           --> ctrl+e --> do the search from HERE

[Matt]

There is some strange logic when using ctrl+f.

Next build:
Fixed: Pressing Ctrl+F to search when you were in a nested sub-view didn't properly jump to the top of the view.  Instead it could jump to an audio view.

[lepa]

Next build:
Fixed: Pressing Ctrl+F to search when you were in a nested sub-view didn't properly jump to the top of the view.  Instead it could jump to an audio view.

Thanks Matt

[RoderickGI]

Well, that is some new information. I didn't know Ctrl+E was supposed to do that.

Probably because the Wiki says that Ctrl+E is "Search using Text Mode", whatever that means.

Also, Ctrl+F is listed "Set focus to Search box", which is what I always expected it to do, without jumping to the top of the View.

It looks like this thread is where it all came about.

Then there is this;

15.0.157 (11/19/2010)
4. Changed: Doing Ctrl+F while drilled down in the library tree will switch to the root of the current library selection (Ctrl+E focuses the search box with no switching).

From the Resource.xml file:
Ctrl+F seems to be MCC  22004      MCC_FIND_MEDIA                              wchar * pstrSearch (note: memory will be deleted by receiver)
Ctrl+E seems to be MCC  22022      MCC_FOCUS_SEARCH_CONTROL         ignore



Matt, is the above correct?
If so I'll update the Wiki to reflect the current functionality.

[RD James]

If I hit CTRL+F in a Now Playing view, it still changes that view to my "New Albums" view instead of searching.