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1. Two ways to search
2. Search config
   1. Providers
   2. Destination
   3. Postprocess
3. Search context menu
4. Search replacement

Search

Two ways to search

There are two way to perform search on site within the component: using search popup window (menu View Youtube Source Search on Site) and using Search (Integrated) UI element.

Auto-completion in search edit box can be turned off using option Search Enable autocomplete in search query edit box.

Search (Integrated) UIE sends results directly to foobar2000 playlists. How and where exactly they are added is controlled by options from Destination group.

Search popup window has list control where results are added. Then you can send selected items from this list to foobar2000 playlist (use context menu to check available options).

This window has option Initial focus to search box in system menu. When enabled, initial focus is always set to search box when window appears on the screen. Otherwise focus is restored on the control that had it last time the window was visible.

Search config

Anchor of search config is Provider group. All options after it are options specific to selected provider. Accordingly, all options before this group (i.e. groups Postprocess and Destination) provide extra features and do not depend on selected provider.

Option Limit tells how many items to retrieve per single search request. It is part of provider config i.e. its maximum value (or whether it is available at all) depends on selected provider.

Note, it is possible to use playlist URLs instead of search query. In this case options that belong to Provider group are ignored, but Destination and Postprocess will work.

Providers

Currently there are only search providers providing possibility to search on Youtube. Basically there are two ways to search. First one (let's call it "WEB") extracts all info from corresponding web pages. The second one (let's call it "API") uses Youtube Data API to get all info.

WEB way is represented by provider youtube.web. It has the same set of search filters as one can find on Youtube site except the ones requiring user authentication and geolocation info.

API way is represented by five providers whose names start with youtube.api. Youtube API supports a lot of parameters, some of which can be used only for particular item types (only when searching for channels, or only when searching for videos). A deal between flexibility and usability ended up with five providers giving access to different intersecting sets of API parameters.

Provider youtube.api tries to give the same set of options as standard search on Youtube site. This is not entirely possible since some options (like search for HDR videos) are not exposed by API.

Full set of differences between youtube.web and youtube.api is listed in the following table.

Providers youtube.api.video, youtube.api.playlist, youtube.api.channel do not attempt to be convenient. They are reference implementation of API capabilities for videos, playlists and channels search respectively. There are included all options available for particular item type except options that require user authentication.

Provider youtube.api.related represent "search for related videos" feature provided by API (see relatedToVideoId). Search query in this case should be Youtube video ID (e.g. for URL https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QueRtYuIOp4 video ID is QueRtYuIOp4).

Destination

This group controls where and how search results are added.

There are three options to select destination playlist: active playlist, new playlist and specific playlist. In the latter case you specify playlist title, and search results will always be added to this playlist. It will be created if yet does not exist. Otherwise first playlist with specified name will be used as destination.

In addition to destination playlist options in this group can be selected few actions to be performed when adding results to destination playlist.

Option wipe before add means that content of destination playlist should be wiped before adding search results.

By default search results are appended to the list of tracks in playlist. Option insert in front makes that search results are inserted on top of existing tracks in destination playlist.

If there are more search results than the number in Limit option, at the end of results in destination playlist will be also inserted track representing next portion of the search. When it is selected to play, it gets replaced by search results from next portion and, if there are more results, another track for next portion. And so on.

If you do not need this "next" track, you can use skip 'next' track option.

More about this "next" track. If it is played during regular playback (for example previous track ended and it was selected to play next) then search results will be placed to playlist and playback will continue from the first search result. If you want to retrieve next portion without playback interruption use context menu Youtube Source Fetch items.

Postprocess

This group holds features that are applied to search results after search completes.

Action add %tracknumber% stores index in found tracks as %tracknumber% metadata field.

Action add playlist meta tags works only for playlists. When loading playlist items, it adds next metadata fields to each track (using metadata overriding): %playlist_title%, %playlist_url%, %playlist_pos%.

Search context menu

Subject of this topic is Youtube Source Search popup menu from playlist context menu.

The idea is to construct search query basing on playlist item metadata and search it on the site. Note that original track does not have to be Youtube video. It can be any local audio file or currently playing song from radio station.

Search items are enabled only when there is selected single playlist item. Particular search item is enabled only if evaluated search query for this item is not empty.

Existing search items can be configured, as well as new ones can be added, using component preferences Search Context Menu tab. It has full set of features available in regular search and works the same except that search query is generated automatically. Use context menu of list control there to check available options.

Search replacement

This feature is originally intended for the cases when you have video which is no longer available (due to account termination or any other reason). This command replaces selected track with a search track configured to search for replacement on Youtube and use first search result.

This functionality is placed in Youtube Source popup menu of playlist context menu. There are available two variants of the search: auto and manual.

Search query for auto variant is generated using titleformatting. Rule for it can be configured using option Search Pattern for automatic substitution.

Manual variant does the same but before substitution appears dialog box where search query can be edited.

Regular (i.e. non-Youtube) playlist items can also be replaced.

Tips for Youtube

Search on Youtube is case insensitive. It is performed in all metadata i.e. not only in title but also in description, user names, keywords etc.

Search supports several rules to customize search query. They are listed in the table below with example of every rule and brief description. Note the number of search results for every rule.

Help Search