Search by artist + release title, and other search options

[Leergier]

First of all, thank you so much for maintaining this absolutely vital plugin!

I have a proposal for improvement, if I may be so bold.

When searching for a release, right now there is only the option to search by artist, you then get an overview of the artist's releases, and the filter does the rest.
This works fine most of the time, but it's a lot slower when you have several artists with identical names in the Discogs database.
An example is Calibre, of which there are like 15 entries in Discogs (Calibre, Calibre (2), ..., Calibre (15)).
This means clicking on each of the 15 possible Calibres in the Find Releases window (and waiting for the releases to be loaded) until you find the one with a release that corresponds to the title in the filter (e.g., "The Deep"). (In this example, the correct artist was actually the first listed Calibre, but you get the idea)

In contrast, when I enter "Calibre The Deep" in the search box on the Discogs website, I immediately get pointed to the exact release I was looking for. Much quicker, that is.

Wouldn't it be possible to implement this in the plugin? Perhaps as a configurable option (e.g., "search by artist" (the default), "search by artist + release title", "search by release title", and perhaps even "search by artist + track title")

Of course, I have no idea how difficult it would be to implement such a thing, so it's just a suggestion, but one that I think might make this already awesome plugin even more awesome!

Again, muchas gracias!

[Leergier]

Here's another example, where the correct artist was the last listed result

[ghuDaYuYu]

Glad you like it!
Your proposal for improvement is welcome indeed!

I believe that it could be workable. There is already a 'search VA' variation when tagging titles prefixed 'VA' or 'Various'.

Thanks for your suggestion,
the 'artist+title' idea it is sure worth a try!

For future reference, here is a link to the search endpoint.

[ghuDaYuYu]

This is a showcase of the search 'artist and master release title', tested with Calibre, Calibre (2), ..., Calibre (15) entries.
As shown, an additional takeaway is loading specific masters into the Find Release panel.

I will update the discussion after trying to include 'non-master releases' in the results.
'artist + track title' goes next, but I guess will only output quality results when both artist and track names contain uncommon words. Finally, search 'artist and release title' will be quite hard, I believe, with many tasks fetching master releases... I am a bit skeptical whether it will be worthwhile.
That´s it for now... : )

[bassstorm]

Hey there! I'm not sure what you use under the hood, but ain't it as easy as make a Search API call, where we can specify many things as semantically separate values, e.g. release title, track title, etc? Looks like in that case the result quality should be relatively high (addressing common words point).
Or maybe you're talking about plugin UI part which got kinda fixed presentation of search results, so that you have to get whole package of master release and actual child releases for every search result?

[ghuDaYuYu]

The UI part now accepts partial loads. About the Search API, you are right, the quality of the results should be high and being used. In the example above:
?type=master&artist=Calibre&title=Deep&per_page=10

Still very sketchy...
foo_discogger 1.0.21.2 Beta 2.zip

[bassstorm]

Caching testing is in progress. Meanwhile, I have issues with new AMT search using that 1.0.21.2 Beta 2 build.

1. Seems it's always a manual touch to enable it. So I have to initiate a tagging dialogues from context menu, copy release title to search input field, enable AMT, click Search button - not the best UX imo :) Can the last state be remembered so that all these steps are automated when one's preferred search is AMT?
2. For some reason, it finds nothing for "Mnemonic Character Setup" query :(

[ghuDaYuYu]

I am checking that release.
About the 1, The component could switch to AMT when a '+' sign is in the query, would that be a good solution in your opinion?

[bassstorm]

Oh, just realized it's cryptic, e.g. I need to replace spaces with pluses and potentially other tricky characters with something else (for example https://www.discogs.com/release/60046-Mlada-Fronta-Fe%E2%82%82O%E2%82%83). Better if all that is done properly by plugin as described in p.1.
End user shouldn't actually even see that escaping being applied, because it's inner implementation details that could change eventually with different APIs being used for example. In other words, search input should be simple plain human readable string. Though I'm not sure how you can separate things for semantical Search API.

[ghuDaYuYu]

Still unsure about the escaping you mention, as far as I can tell is not needed, just the plus sign. Could you provide and example, with the search expression you are escaping?

[bassstorm]

Mnemonic+character setup works here, Mlada Fronta+Fe₂O₃ also finds the album.

Oh, I thought I have to insert plus signs instead of all spaces (hence 'escaping'). But that's a good example why actual user shouldn't even be involved as much as possible.

[ghuDaYuYu]

As a side note, the artist name to the right of the Configure button, will be replaced by e.g. 'Calibre (partial)' instead of just 'Calibre' when showing AMT results.
I agree, the component could check for one and only occurrence of the '+' sign between words and activate AMT accordingly.

[ghuDaYuYu]

There is an option to search in all fields (label, year, etc) which would not require plus sign, but I believe it will only provide quality results for rare words in the query, needing to avoid also words in label names, surnames, etc. if that is not the intention. I need to test this further... ATM, I believe that artist+master title is quite a great feature by itself.

Also note that the last v1.0.21.2 beta 2 limits AMT search results to 10, that number should be increased soon.
Thanks for your suggestions and testing!

[bassstorm]

Agree, even current solution (artist+release) it should cover most cases and bring a great deal of convenience.

[ghuDaYuYu]

I am happy about limiting functionality to masters by now. It makes it more manageable. The next progress will probably be to check those cases when AMT outputs multiple artists and attaching their filtered masters accordingly.

[bassstorm]

FYI, I found an edge case for AMT -- artists with plus in their name :)
For example, for this release https://www.discogs.com/master/53258-Denzel-Huhn-Paraport I'm not sure how query string should look like, neither "denzel + huhn + paraport" nor "denzel + huhn+paraport" works for me.

[ghuDaYuYu]

Denzel Huhn+Paraport works here.

[ghuDaYuYu]

Thanks! those cases should require ++ instead,
But there might be and edge case for that too : )

foo_discogger 1.0.21.2 Beta 3

Change log:

• Build masters in the tree for each artist in the search result (e.g. house love+love)
• Show Artist Name (partial) when loading only Artist AMT masters in the tree.

foo_discogger 1.0.21.2 Beta 3.zip

[bassstorm]

From what I see, the cache, while expires and content is re-fetched (need to test on bigger artists tho), actual cached .json files aren't deleted automatically. That way cache folder will keep growing with time :(
Is that correct observation? If yes, then please, please add that auto clean-up hook.

[ghuDaYuYu]

That´s correct... although #111 'Artist and album are not recognized' might be closing soon, with the inclusion of your proposal, the expiration date. About the above discussion, I end up somehow running AMT searches on 'Various+Title' so VA searches might also be considered from now on.

[Leergier]

First of all, thank you for bringing my proposal into development! I feel honoured 🤗

I've tried the Beta 3, and here are my thoughts to it.

I don't think I understand the reason behind limiting the functionality to ?type=master, instead of using ?type=all in the API search query, although I'm sure there's a good technical reason for that. I found that this limitation does, well, limit its usefulness, because it won't find the releases that don't have a master, which is still a lot of them.

Also, when switching from regular search to "search artist + master title" (in those cases where there are multiple artists with the same name, and you don't feel like going through all of them one by one, or when an artist has SO many releases it takes forever to load them), I have to, first, type in a "+" sign, followed by the release title, behind the artist name in the search bar. Even though this information is already present in the "filter" text field. I think it would be easy to just use that and pass it to "&title=" in the search query, so the user doesn't have to type in anything extra.

Here's an example to better show what I mean (Andy Martin - Cuerpo de Obsidiana)

I still get no result after switching to AMT search. Whereas with ?type=all, there would be a single search result, the release I was looking for, which in this case had no master: https://www.discogs.com/search/?type=all&title=cuerpo&artist=andy+martin

(Actually, I could've chosen a better example, since this particular release doesn't show up anywhere in the results from the plugin, but only in the search results from the Discogs website, for now at least. I'm not sure why that is, maybe because it's still a recent and pending submission?)

Another good example is Crimson - CLXXIV. Can't find it with the plugin, since the correct artist, Crimson (41), is not in the list of artist search results. Doing an AMT search also gives no results, since there's no master release. A "?type=all" search, https://www.discogs.com/search/?type=all&title=CLXXIV&artist=crimson, produces a single result.

Besides this, there's another thing I noticed. Trying to find artists like "Alpha+" or "+Alpha" is difficult. I couldn't find them using the plugin. To find them using the search from the website, I had the best results with https://www.discogs.com/search/?type=artist&title=alpha%2B&strict=true (with 'Search by Exact Match' enabled). Although it doesn't make a difference if you use alpha%2B or alpha, because the search ignores the "+" sign (%2B) anyway.

[bassstorm]

Basically, same UX concerns as mine plus a tad more 👍

[ghuDaYuYu]

So do I, there is still some uncertainty, and the proposal might have to be rejected finally... hope it is not!

Thanks for the test data. I could not reproduce most with beta 5. Andy Martin' Cuerpo and Crimson CLXXIV show up as expected.
Also pasted the Alpha+ URL from Discogs.com into the artist search. 🗿it loads...
Ehm... sorry, I did not advance much on this. Is there any deduction to be taken from Alpha+ or new proposals?

Beta 5...

Change log:

• non-master releases
• isolate search AT history
• search result limit: 10 masters + 10 non-master releases
• credits artwork featured again in Betas

Known issues:

• HTTP 404 and 500 were collected in Various
• empty tree panel when the 'main role' option is enabled

v1.0.21.2 Beta 5

[ghuDaYuYu]

Change log:

• fix crash parsing Artist+Title releases
• fix find release panel artist link URL

v1.0.21.2 Beta 6

[ghuDaYuYu]

Hi,
I agree, that is a bit weird.
A quick fix for this query could have been replacing artist= ... with q= ...
So that artist=VC-118A & title=Waves Of Change becomes q=VC-118A & title=Waves Of Change
Same solution as discussed before for The Ballistic Brothers.

About switching to the old artist free text search, this new release includes a new suggestion: Ctrl + 9: Artist name.
It could be useful as a quick shortcut to clear the query syntax.

I also added another suggestion: Ctrl + 5: q= Artist name & title= Album title.

Both rely on metadata availability in the tracks.
Some sort of manual editing will be necessary if there is no such metadata.

Unfortunately, the component can not pre-fill the Discogs Advanced search fields.
I would say that (as an alternative to replicate the advanced search form in Discogger) users could start the search process at Discogs, then paste the https://www.discogs.com/search/?type=all... URL to the component search field.

Please correct me if I am misunderstanding your feature request.
... and thank you for your new suggestion!

foo_discogger v1.0.22.beta.20.zip

Change log:

• Added suggestion 'Artist name' (Ctrl + 9)
• Added suggestion 'q= Artist name & title= Album title' (Ctrl + 5)

[bassstorm]

I didn't realize we have shortcuts here :) Yes, that makes the trick. One small issue with new shortcut though: it ain't activated upon pressing Ctrl+5... The others work just fine (e.g. Ctrl+9, Ctrl+4, etc). I mean I see them all in the menu, including new one...
And one quirk: the shortcuts work when focus is on query field only. While by default focus is on search button... Is that Wine specific issue? Can you kindly double check on your side?

[ghuDaYuYu]

Unrelated to the last issue, I thought I could post another test on this new feature.

Metadata
Album artist: The Beatles
Album title: One

Without realizing the title misspelling, and lacking enough practice...
q=The Beatles & title=One & track=The Ballad Of John And Yoko
The query results hinted at the correct title.
artist=The Beatles & title=1 & track=The Ballad Of John And Yoko
This time, the query produced some 'Undefined releases'.
It is recommended to tune the search a bit further in those scenarios.
Finally, the last query produced higher quality output.
It is easy now to identify and compare relevant releases.
artist=The Beatles & title=1 & track=The Ballad Of John And Yoko & format=cd compilation

[bassstorm]

Not sure I understand the idea... But if I can help with testing, I'm all in.

[bassstorm]

This becomes giant of a discussion :D

But I still want to highlight one point. Yesterday I recalled numerous discussions re caching behavior and optimizations. Suddenly I realized that's not a topic anymore. I mean, at all. With upcoming v1.0.22 I've never seen "loading page 1/35..." message :)
Absolutely stunning work, thanks @ghuDaYuYu!

[ghuDaYuYu]

Nice catch! Ctrl+5 should be fixed in this release.
It is not Wine-specific; the shortcuts only work when the artist field has the focus. I will try to amend it in future releases, by now arrow keys would be needed to navigate the context menu.

Sorry, there was not much behind the last test... just a silly example of one's experience. If any, maybe what you just mentioned; tagging an individual Beatles album does not require a release ID or "loading page 1/93..." messages any more.
Loading whole artist releases remains a great feature, nevertheless.
I am glad you appreciate how much of an improvement the v1.0.22 will be, which comes as no surprise, you are contributing to it so much!

Naturally... thanks to you too for your help and support : )

foo_discogger v1.0.22.beta.21.zip

Change log:

• Fixed Ctrl+5
• Fixed crash calling artist search shortcuts from other text boxes.

[bassstorm]

Glad to help!
Ah, and can confirm the new shortcut works now :)

[Lovecraft-github]

Hi ghuDaYuYu.

The last beta are working very well and like other people are telling you it is even rare to see the loading release pages pop-up. The searches find the correct release in very high %.
In the graphic UI field, I found a glitch in the releases part of the search window. I don't know if it is a wine thing and it don't happen all the time.
sometimes when there is several matches in the release list and some of then can be expanded, expanding and collapse one release don't completely clean the previous results.
Some screenshots could explain tit better.
https://imgur.com/Fyq6Cko
with the item expanded
https://imgur.com/wluhRxO
deselecting filtered versions clean the bad line
https://imgur.com/gnnEFRf

[bassstorm]

I don't experience such glitch on my old Wine 8.0. Select/deselect many times, it's rendered good in every case.

[Lovecraft-github]

Most of the time me neither, it only happens sometimes.
could you tried one search that always trigger it for me.
Search for "artist=Pantha Du Prince & title=Garden Gaia (Remixes) & track=Alles Fühlt (Stefan Goldmann Remix)"
with the option "filterd versions" activated
It will give you one result
https://imgur.com/uZInylQ
now remove from the search field all after "(remixes)". The search now will be "artist=Pantha Du Prince & title=Garden Gaia"
now in the filter section remove " (remixes). Filter field will be "Garden Gaia". Now you would have two results...
https://imgur.com/QjiV6QB
now expand the first result and I have this
https://imgur.com/Vu2jgQO
and collapsing it again
https://imgur.com/99HBvIt
deselecting filtered versions clean it
https://imgur.com/nPktgvD

I tried with different list styles, grid, playlist grind, etc and default font, list font. Always the same glitch.

[ghuDaYuYu]

I also like the hit % :)
also the pre-populated master tree nodes!

[bassstorm]

Late to the party. But, still, no glitches for above, carefully followed instructions :) Anyway, glad it was fixed with new release!

[ghuDaYuYu]

Hi, thanks Lovecraft and bassstorm for testing and reporting.
I can confirm that glitch in the release tree.
It also affects v1.0.21.x, and yes, it seems to be a wine thing.
I could not investigate the issue properly, just had the time to apply a quick patch.
This new release also fixes a bug introduced in the previous beta, causing unresponsive filter and release ID text boxes.

foo_discogger v1.0.22.beta.22.zip

[Lovecraft-github]

quick path working fine here.
Thanks dude

[bassstorm]

Hello!

If I may suggest a small usability improvement...

There's an "Add search field" functionality. I don't use it often, but when I use I normally wanna narrow down current (default) search by an extra field. Here's an example where catalog number comes very handy :)

Two little quirks we have here:

1. Added field goes with equals (catno=) which is great. Desired: would be great to add it like & catno= to avoid manual work.
2. Cursor position is reset to zero, at least under Wine (see screenshot). Desired: put cursor right after added field (catno=<cursor-here>) to type value directly.

I believe above would make good feature great.

Cheers!

[ghuDaYuYu]

Hello!
Your suggestions are very welcome! The feature was just drafted and in need of some care.
There should be some improvements in the new release below,
although it's not perfect yet, surely it can be enhanced.

[bassstorm]

Hi :)
Thank you, I managed to quickly check new beta. It's close, just one use case isn't covered.

1. Initiate a search
2. See search results, but don't touch anything
3. Go to "Add search field" menu directly and choose any field

Expected: new field is appended, e.g. artist=Entia Non & title=Fold & label=<cursor>.
Actual: new field is prepended, e.g. label=<cursor> artist=Entia Non & title=Fold.

Cheers!

[ghuDaYuYu]

Hello bassstorm!

There are some recent updates about this topic.

Related but not explicitly mentioned earlier:

• Using Tab key navigation to focus on a 'text edit with buttons' control (artist, tree filter, release ID) now selects all text and moves the cursor position to the end of the selection, as seen in Foobar 2000 Properties and Configuration pages.

I tested some additional use cases related to the initial request '2. Cursor position resets to zero':

• Replacing the content of edit text boxes with query patterns, suggestions or history values now also moves the cursor to the end of the new values.

Finally, as mentioned in your last use case:

• New search fields are now appended (not prepended) to untouched/unfocused artist text boxes.

I believe most use cases should work as expected now. Please let us know if you encounter more glitches...
your help and support are greatly appreciated!

Cheers!

[bassstorm]

Massive! I'm gonna do some tagging this weekend, but new beta so far so good :)

[frogworth]

@ghuDaYuYu I'm finding that foobar2000 crashes whenever I use the formulas in the search field.
Actually, what seems to happpen is that the search is submitted, and I get the artist name with three bold lines next to it. But when I click the artist, that's when the program crashes.

I'm on your latest beta 22, and foobar's latest 32bit preview - 2025-11-15.

These are the crash logs:
failure_00000126.txt
failure_00000126.dmp

[ghuDaYuYu]

Sorry about that. Thanks for reporting and including those crash logs.
I was able to replicate the crash only when the Preferences::Searching::Auto-load releases on artist list selections option was disabled.
Was it disabled in your configuration?

foo_discogger v1.0.22.beta.23.zip

Change log:

• Cursor position, text replacement and '&' inserts revision related to the 'Add search field' menu action.
• Patched crash loading queried artist releases when the 'auto-load releases on selection' option is disabled.
• Wine dark mode: updated artist list and release tree symbols.

[frogworth]

Thanks @ghuDaYuYu!
I do have that setting disabled, yes.
This version hasn't crashed for me - thanks!

[ghuDaYuYu]

It is a bit worrying to still encounter such horrible bugs.
Anyway... I am glad the crash is now patched.
Thank you for the confirmation!

[ghuDaYuYu]

foo_discogger v1.0.22.beta.24.zip

Change log:

• Find release dialog: artist search, tree filter and release ID edit text box UI revisions.

[ghuDaYuYu]

it might no be worth updating th3m

[Lovecraft-github]

The strange thing is that the problem is from
2025-11-14

Experimental Windows Imaging Component / Direct2D album art rendering in Default User Interface.

and it suppose to be fixed
2025-11-15

Various fixes in new album art rendering routines.

2025-11-18

Windows: Fixed crashing when a picture cannot be decoded for whatever reason.
Windows: Added Gdiplus fallback when Windows Imaging can't decode some image, so systems without Windows Imaging codecs can again show album art.

So it seems to be a regression.
Maybe after holydays peter will fix it again...

[ghuDaYuYu]

You surely know this by now, but anyway…
Yes, the issue was fixed approx. around version foobar2000_v2.26_preview_2026-03-23.

[Lovecraft-github]

Yes :-D, but thanks for caring

[bassstorm]

Still runnin' 2.24 😁

[ghuDaYuYu]

Just coming back after a while to provide a minor update to the topic.

foo_discogger v1.0.22.beta.25.zip

Change log:

• Fixed yet another crash scenario on artists list selections related to Disk cache turned off.

[Lovecraft-github]

Cool, new version.
I was running this test version all this time without problem.

[ghuDaYuYu]

Some more info for the upcoming feature guide...

To exclude a word or value from a Discogs query search, type a minus sign (-) right before the word you want to hide. For example, searching format= -cd finds all formats but hides cds.

Tip: play around with quoting text, listing values separated by spaces and using the - prefix and | operator.

Some examples

genre = House - "Synth-pop"
genre = House | "Synth-pop"

To exclude Acid House from the above

genre = House "Synth-pop" -"Acid House"

Other examples:
artist = Yo La Tengo & title= Fakebook & format = Vinyl | Cassette
artist = Yo La Tengo & title= Fakebook & format = -Vinyl -Cassette

[ghuDaYuYu]

Latest release:

foo_discogger v1.0.22.RC.1.zip

Whats new:

• Code cleanup and refactoring.

... and maybe introducing new bugs or regressions,
Thanks a lot for testing and reporting!

A rough summary of the latest changes since v1.0.21.x

General fixes:

• Fixed a crash parsing extra credits featured in some releases.

• Fixed Find release panel artist link URL.

• Hopefully, no more issues downgrading from future configuration versions to v1.0.22. But please, back up your current .cfg before updating.

• Fixed reset preferences crash.

• More fixes related to the UI freezing during time-consuming operations.

• Fix only load artist previews and skip search queries when the 'Skip Find Release' option is on.

• Fixed stalled auto-search related to the Skip Find Release option.

• Fixed Skip preview configuration.

• Fixed non-master release tag result MASTER_RELEASE_ID = 0

• Mitigates tree tooltips stealing foreground window focus.

• Fixed tree filter not applying to artist selections.

• Fixed unsorted Discogs format track position parsing.

• Fixed clear cache on Cache:Merge subtracks dotted w/o duration option updates.

• Fixed closing down the Track match dialog causing multiple state saves.

• Automatic tracklist matching incomplete albums (selected tracks < Discogs release tracks).

• Find release dialog: artist search, tree filter and release ID edit text box UI revisions (selections, cursor positions, text insert/replacements).

• Fixed wrong font in preference panel section headers.

• Patched crash loading artist list releases when Disk cache is turned off or the 'auto-load releases on selection' option is disabled.

• Some improvements related to UI freezing during time-consuming release tree filtering operations.

• Removed track file extensions pasted from the Track matching dialog.

• Fixed Artist URL link control focus state font painting.

• Fixed track position issues related to unsorted Discogs formats.

• Fixed some scenarios showing wrong multi-vinyl disc numbers.

Wine-related fixes:

• Find release dialog: Patches edit box with buttons Wine default light theme support.

• Patch Wine release tree showing duplicated/blank entries (after approx. Wine > v9.0).

• Hyperlink label color is now configurable in Wine installations (Preferences: Colors and Fonts highlight).

• Wine dark mode: updated artist list and release tree symbols.

Search query fixes:

• Various artist prefixes (CSV): Now checks for both whole word equality and whole word prefix.

• Various artist prefixes (CSV): Fixed album artist matches.

• 401 Authorization Failed/Search syntax error exception pop-up now shows non-escaped URLs.

New in v1.0.22:

• Discogs search query syntax.

• Artist/URL search field now accepts Discogs advanced search URLs.

• New Preference page section 'Searching Adv.'.

• Added Preference page section headers.

• Added option to disable auto-loading multiple artists.

• Added 'Copy' option to the Track matching dialog context menu.

• Added title-format syntax help shortcuts to Search, Matching and Artwork preference page tabs.

• Added support for some use cases related to releases that use Roman/English track position numbers.

New related to search queries (Find release panel):

• Improved %RELEASE_SEARCH_MAJOR_FORMATS% tags (3xVinyl, 2xCD,...).

• %RELEASE_QUERY_MAJOR_FORMATS_QTY%

• %RELEASE_COUNTRY%

• Pre-populated master tree nodes.

[ghuDaYuYu]

Another minor update...

foo_discogger v1.0.22.RC.2.zip

Fixes:

• Several crash scenarios related to concurrent tag generation.
• $prompt(N) dialog not showing.
• Crash entering invalid OAuth PIN codes.
• Fixed Track matching dialog saving only the active view column layout.
  The 150x150px tile layout is still not being saved, though.