Editing what to search when looking for artwork

[Pai_Natal]

I've tried different searches to see if this was addressed in any topic previously, and couldn't find anything.

For some albums, I like to keep some additional information, usually under [ ] brackets, besides the album name, in the same field.

The problem is, when I try to use MusicBee to automatically search the internet for the album cover, it will run a search with the entire thing under the album field, including what's inside the brackets, so it generally won't find any images.

Is there anyway to customize exactly what is used for the search? And I mean not just the field, but to filter it using RegEx patterns or something like that?

Thanks!

[hiccup]

Welcome to the forum Pai_Natal.

I am pretty sure that cannot be done.
It would be much more advisable to keep the Album field populated as it is supposed to be; only the correct album title.
Any additional information on an album could—and should—go into a custom tag.

Then for displaying the album title and the additional information together under the album art, use a virtual tag.
Something like this: <Album> [<Additional info>]
(or whatever you name the relevant custom tag)

[Pai_Natal]

HI hiccup, thanks for your answer.

That's an interesting workaround. The only problem is that when I play my music on another, less sophisticated player, as in my phone, I won't have access (at least no easily) to that information, which is why I ended up putting it in the album field.
Maybe I'll have to live with that.
But MusicBee is so flexible and customizable in so many ways, it seems strange that for album art search you are limited to a predetermined patterned based on predetermined fields. It would be good if you could at least use other fields for the search (then I could use the custom field to search, and keep my album field intact), and if no relevant results are found, just type directly what should be searched. Instead of going to google.
That's a suggestion

[MotleyG]

That's an interesting workaround. The only problem is that when I play my music on another, less sophisticated player, as in my phone, I won't have access (at least no easily) to that information, which is why I ended up putting it in the album field.

I wouldn't focus on making changes to "good" data in my library to satisfy a less capable player. Even if it is just for your phone. But perhaps a suggestion - use the Auto-playlist function in MusicBee that can work with the additional virtual and custom tags for you, before you transfer these to your phone - is a solution?

[watdub]

Could you search for the album cover before you alter the album title?

[hiccup]

I have created a wishlist topic for this:
https://getmusicbee.com/forum/index.php?topic=38875.0

[Pai_Natal]

Could you search for the album cover before you alter the album title?

That's what I do for the new albums. But I don't want to do it for the 20k+ albums already in my library.

I wouldn't focus on making changes to "good" data in my library to satisfy a less capable player. Even if it is just for your phone. But perhaps a suggestion - use the Auto-playlist function in MusicBee that can work with the additional virtual and custom tags for you, before you transfer these to your phone - is a solution?

In the end, that's probably what I'm going to do, reorganize my library using virtual tags. But still I think a more flexible artwork search could be a useful feature, and not so difficult to implement.

I have created a wishlist topic for this:
https://getmusicbee.com/forum/index.php?topic=38875.0

Perfect!

Thanks to all for your suggestions

[Pai_Natal]

Welcome to the forum Pai_Natal.

I am pretty sure that cannot be done.
It would be much more advisable to keep the Album field populated as it is supposed to be; only the correct album title.
Any additional information on an album could—and should—go into a custom tag.

Then for displaying the album title and the additional information together under the album art, use a virtual tag.
Something like this: <Album> [<Additional info>]
(or whatever you name the relevant custom tag)

Ok, so I rearranged my library as suggested. The album tag now only has the album name, and all the rest is stored in a custom tag called <Additional info>. Then I use a virtual tag to display both together. It works fine, except for one thing. Some of the album names have semicolons (eg, classical albums with multiple works).
When I use the album tag on the column browser, the full album name is displayed as a single album.
But when using a virtual tag, it will interpret the semicolons as separators, a created different entries.
There must be a way to prevent this? How can I do it?