jimmiem
Sometimes less is more. If you don't know exactly how something is spelled or maybe it is tagged wrong in your database, it would be nice to have a search that would let you find those songs easier.
One example is I like to play Shout off the Animal House soundtrack. I know I have this song on several albums plus all the songs like twist and shout that contain the word 'shout.' In other programs, I search for 'shout anim' and it shows me one result, the one I'm looking for.
Say I want to play Mariah Carey - All I want for Christmas is You. I would love to be able to enter 'mar car chris' and have the right song pop up.
How about Britney? I try to keep all my songs tagged properly but she still pops up from time to time as brittney. Wouldn't it be nice to just type 'brit spear' and have her whole catalog come up? or narrow it further by entering 'brit spear gim' for Gimme More.
One example is I like to play Shout off the Animal House soundtrack. I know I have this song on several albums plus all the songs like twist and shout that contain the word 'shout.' In other programs, I search for 'shout anim' and it shows me one result, the one I'm looking for.
Say I want to play Mariah Carey - All I want for Christmas is You. I would love to be able to enter 'mar car chris' and have the right song pop up.
How about Britney? I try to keep all my songs tagged properly but she still pops up from time to time as brittney. Wouldn't it be nice to just type 'brit spear' and have her whole catalog come up? or narrow it further by entering 'brit spear gim' for Gimme More.
Inviato Sat 15 Dec 07 @ 12:17 pm
DJShahar.com
there are 2 characters you can use. the * and the ?
* unlimited number of wild characters allowed;
ex: instead of "britney spears" type in "br*t*sp*rs"
? represents one charater to be used as a wild card;
ex: instead of "carey" type "car?y"
:)
* unlimited number of wild characters allowed;
ex: instead of "britney spears" type in "br*t*sp*rs"
? represents one charater to be used as a wild card;
ex: instead of "carey" type "car?y"
:)
Inviato Wed 19 Dec 07 @ 8:54 pm
andytaylor125
That's interesting, but it would be nice not to have to type in *s and ?s. Also, the problem I have with that is, for example, I have a file which is "Justin Timberlake- Sexy Back.vob". So I can use the search "justin*sexy" and it finds the song. Great. But if I type "sexy*justin" it doesn't come up with the file.
It's a bit annoying. So another vote for improved search please
:)
It's a bit annoying. So another vote for improved search please
:)
Inviato Wed 26 Dec 07 @ 7:37 am
DJ Ross M
I use WildCard '*' searches a lot, it works well but to be honest I agree that having to put in '*' can be a pain particularly on laptop and micro rack keyboards without numeric keypads.
I know we're only talking about shift+8 but it's surprising how much extra thought that takes.
It's a great way of finding something you're slightly unsure of the spelling for example.
As Andy Taylor also mentioned, it would be nice if the search could work in reverse too and just produce all matches 'provided the string is correct' regardless of the order they appear in.
Ross
I know we're only talking about shift+8 but it's surprising how much extra thought that takes.
It's a great way of finding something you're slightly unsure of the spelling for example.
As Andy Taylor also mentioned, it would be nice if the search could work in reverse too and just produce all matches 'provided the string is correct' regardless of the order they appear in.
Ross
Inviato Sat 05 Jan 08 @ 10:31 pm
DJShahar.com
well i think he was reffering to the search function not carrying what you type in first,
be it any of these combinations will get you the same results.
artist*title*ablum
title*artist*album
it would appear that a search strict value needs to be changeable.
be it any of these combinations will get you the same results.
artist*title*ablum
title*artist*album
it would appear that a search strict value needs to be changeable.
Inviato Wed 09 Jan 08 @ 9:38 pm
jimmiem
Actually I was not aware of the * variable being available. That helps... some. As was mentioned earlier, why do I have to input anything, let alone something that requires holding two keys? Why can't 'space' being the variable? I type fairly well but I still am slowed down by having to input *. Try it now. type 'sir mi*bab* go* back' and then type 'sir mi bab got back' and tell me which you can do faster/more naturally.
The fact that it doesn't recognize the difference between 'timbaland*way i are' and 'way i are*timbaland' can slow things too. I'll use the example of shout again. What if you just want to play the isley brothers version of shout but without thinking, you enter just the word 'shout.' You'll see tons of results. Every song you own with the word shout in the title and even artists with shout in their names. A common sense search would let me add words to continue to narrow the search, but to find exactly what I'm looking for in VDJ I have to start a new search.
And what fields are covered by a search? In iTunes even hidden fields are used to populate search results. This would be helpful if you know what album contains the song you're looking for. I have lots of songs with different versions on different albums - remixes would be a good example.
The fact that it doesn't recognize the difference between 'timbaland*way i are' and 'way i are*timbaland' can slow things too. I'll use the example of shout again. What if you just want to play the isley brothers version of shout but without thinking, you enter just the word 'shout.' You'll see tons of results. Every song you own with the word shout in the title and even artists with shout in their names. A common sense search would let me add words to continue to narrow the search, but to find exactly what I'm looking for in VDJ I have to start a new search.
And what fields are covered by a search? In iTunes even hidden fields are used to populate search results. This would be helpful if you know what album contains the song you're looking for. I have lots of songs with different versions on different albums - remixes would be a good example.
Inviato Sun 13 Jan 08 @ 9:06 am
Paz75
there arent many non-alphanumeric characters that you can use without two buttons. but tilde (`) could work.
in fact an option where you can specify your wildkey character would be excellent so its up to the users preference.
anything other than that, organise your music. but if you cant be arsed to press two keys at once, probably your collection is an absolute mess from neglect anyhow
in fact an option where you can specify your wildkey character would be excellent so its up to the users preference.
anything other than that, organise your music. but if you cant be arsed to press two keys at once, probably your collection is an absolute mess from neglect anyhow
Inviato Mon 14 Jan 08 @ 2:20 am
dizzyrocks2001
I think the search engine is excellent and don't see why you have such a need for a wildcard character. If your tracks are using the correct file name convention (eg. artist - song) and they're tagged properly then I don't see what the big issue is. To use your example, if you labeled the file name as "Timbaland - The Way I Are" you should be able to type in "Timbaland" and every track with "Timbaland" will appear. Assuming you don't have 1000 Timbaland tracks then it should be a simple matter of clicking on the "Song Title" heading and all the "Timbaland" songs will appear in alphabetical order and it should be easy to see it. Or even quicker, type in as much as "Timbaland - The W" and unless there's some Timbaland track called "The Weed Wacker" then your desired result should appear as the only result. I think the problem is a combination of three things; you haven't gone through the trouble of labelling/tagging your tracks properly (if you're having to us a wildcard character in an example like Shou* T*e Isl*y *roth*rs then you really need to re-do your tracks), you're not quite familiar enough with your music collection, and (I'd hate to say it but) you're a little on the lazy side.
The search window within VDJ works faster than the search on my Mac's spotlight window not to mention you have the option of utilizing the search engine's many search criteria options within your search if you so choose (comment, album, bpm, year etc.) thus making it even easier than ever before. The search feature is only as good as the work you put into properly labelling your tracks. Once in a blue moon I'll type out a track and the song won't come up and it's always because I neglected to label the track properly so I have only myself to blame and I know I have to take the time to fix it, and I accept this.
The search window within VDJ works faster than the search on my Mac's spotlight window not to mention you have the option of utilizing the search engine's many search criteria options within your search if you so choose (comment, album, bpm, year etc.) thus making it even easier than ever before. The search feature is only as good as the work you put into properly labelling your tracks. Once in a blue moon I'll type out a track and the song won't come up and it's always because I neglected to label the track properly so I have only myself to blame and I know I have to take the time to fix it, and I accept this.
Inviato Mon 14 Jan 08 @ 7:15 am
jimmiem
Dizzy: So your argument is that the search is fine and I should go through my 50,000+- tracks to make sure they're all tagged properly, despite the fact that a simple improvement to the search function would make it unnecessary and would not affect your searches at all... in other words it works fine for you so it should be good enough for everybody.
Given that this would not affect you one way or another, why do you feel the need to weigh in at all? The search works fine for you, and I don't begrudge you that. Most of the time the search is fine for me too, but I still find myself having to enter multiple queries to find a song because either I don't know the name of the song or how to spell the artists name or the file is not tagged properly or whatever; or I just wind up having to type more than I need to or using a two-key wildcard, both of which slow me down.
In your example of Timbaland - The Way I are, you suggest typing 'Timbaland - way' but if the search was more forgiving, it would show up if you typed 'timba way'. It's easier. It's faster. How can you argue against a feature that would make it easier and faster to search large libraries?
What set me off about your post is that this is a feature that would help me and wouldn't affect you at all. That's like saying we don't need wheelchair ramps in public places because you can walk fine :)
Paz: My point is that the wildcard isn't necessary, or rather a space should be sufficient. I'm not sure how this turned into an issue about how organized my music is. It's pretty clean and pretty well tagged. I don't think that has anything to do with my feature request.
Given that this would not affect you one way or another, why do you feel the need to weigh in at all? The search works fine for you, and I don't begrudge you that. Most of the time the search is fine for me too, but I still find myself having to enter multiple queries to find a song because either I don't know the name of the song or how to spell the artists name or the file is not tagged properly or whatever; or I just wind up having to type more than I need to or using a two-key wildcard, both of which slow me down.
In your example of Timbaland - The Way I are, you suggest typing 'Timbaland - way' but if the search was more forgiving, it would show up if you typed 'timba way'. It's easier. It's faster. How can you argue against a feature that would make it easier and faster to search large libraries?
What set me off about your post is that this is a feature that would help me and wouldn't affect you at all. That's like saying we don't need wheelchair ramps in public places because you can walk fine :)
Paz: My point is that the wildcard isn't necessary, or rather a space should be sufficient. I'm not sure how this turned into an issue about how organized my music is. It's pretty clean and pretty well tagged. I don't think that has anything to do with my feature request.
Inviato Mon 14 Jan 08 @ 7:42 pm
Paz75
i have some tracks by sound republic. a few of them were remixed by jacob london. if i put sound rep, i get a whole bunch including 3 with jacob london in it.
what you are proposing is that i can put sound rep jacob and get exactly what i want. however, without the wildcard, it would be implying its a literal terms acutally saying 'sound rep jacob' which doesnt exist. sound rep* jacob does work for obvious reasons.
if you remove the wildcard, you will be getting more returned results on those times you want to be specific. and its not an issue about your organization, it was more like sarcastic humor. sorry you missed it, didnt mean to offend. ;-)
but seriously, wildcard helps you when you need it. to remove it is exactly what you mention about the wheelchair and the ramp. there are certain times where you need the delicacy of a scalpel and other times, the brute force of a hammer.
if you've ever heard of regular expressions in code (regex), you would see the varying degrees of how search can be extremely powerful and equally a pain in the arse
<cue spinderman's gramps>with great power comes great responsibility</cue>
nerd out.
what you are proposing is that i can put sound rep jacob and get exactly what i want. however, without the wildcard, it would be implying its a literal terms acutally saying 'sound rep jacob' which doesnt exist. sound rep* jacob does work for obvious reasons.
if you remove the wildcard, you will be getting more returned results on those times you want to be specific. and its not an issue about your organization, it was more like sarcastic humor. sorry you missed it, didnt mean to offend. ;-)
but seriously, wildcard helps you when you need it. to remove it is exactly what you mention about the wheelchair and the ramp. there are certain times where you need the delicacy of a scalpel and other times, the brute force of a hammer.
if you've ever heard of regular expressions in code (regex), you would see the varying degrees of how search can be extremely powerful and equally a pain in the arse
<cue spinderman's gramps>with great power comes great responsibility</cue>
nerd out.
Inviato Tue 15 Jan 08 @ 11:14 am
dizzyrocks2001
Yup, I see all your points but even without the wild card doo-dads the longest it takes me to find a track is like 10 seconds. And to use your example "if i put sound rep, i get a whole bunch including 3 with jacob london in it" then all the tracks with Jacob London will obviously stand out and how hard is it to visually browse through those three tracks. Is that so hard? Besides, by using wild cards you'll end up getting a lot of unwanted hits with "sound" and "rep" in it and then you'll complain about that.
Inviato Tue 15 Jan 08 @ 1:56 pm
androidi
The algorithm to do this is called edit distance. If implemented it should probably be easy to opt-in/out as it can get very CPU intensive or use a smarter hybrid approach like first doing the regular search and then show few of the edit distance best ranked matches (run the algo in a lower priority thread).
Inviato Tue 15 Jan 08 @ 2:09 pm
Paz75
to add to android, i think the confusion is knowing when your search should be literal or expansive.
Inviato Tue 15 Jan 08 @ 9:29 pm