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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 the 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 the 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 the 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 three search providers representing three different ways to search:

• youtube.web. Let's call it "WEB" way. This way component extracts all info from the corresponding web pages.
• yt-dlp. This way utilizes the search capabilities provided by yt-dlp.
• youtube.api and its derivatives. Let's call them all "API" way. This way uses Youtube Data API to get all the info.

WEB way has the same set of search filters as Youtube website except the ones requiring user authentication and geolocation.

When using yt-dlp, component requests "flat playlist" (option --flat-playlist) otherwise every video would be analyzed and search would take a lot of time. Some properties in the search results are missing because of this.

API way is represented by four providers: one common (youtube.api) and three specialized. Specialized providers are reference implementations of Search API with parameters relevant to corresponding resource types (because a lot of parameters there are relevant only for a subset of resource types). And the common one (youtube.api) is a simplified mix that tries to give the same set of options as the standard search on Youtube site. This is not entirely possible since some options (like search for HDR videos) are not exposed by API.

Summary of differences between the search ways is provided in the following table.

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. For the latter you need to 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.

This group also provides few actions to be performed when adding results to destination playlist.

Option wipe before add means that destination playlist should be cleared before adding new search results.

If destination playlist already contains some tracks, search results are appended to the end. When option insert in front is enabled, results are inserted before the existing tracks.

If there are more search results than the number in Limit option, after the search results in destination playlist will also be added a track representing the next portion of the search. When it is selected to play, it gets replaced by the search results from the next portion and, if there are more results, another track for the 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 the search results will be added 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 the search is completed.

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 the playlist context menu.

The idea is to construct search query basing on the 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, for example, a currently playing song from the radio station.

Search items are enabled only when there is selected single playlist item. Particular search item is enabled only if the search query for this item will not be empty after processing titleformatting in it.

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 the search query is generated automatically. Use context menu of the list control there to check for 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 the 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 a dialog box appears before substitution 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 the 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 an example for every rule and a brief description. Note the number of search results for every rule.

Help Search