Windows Media Player 11 Search Tips
ADVERTISEMENTSThis is a guest post by Shankar Ganesh from Technology Blog who writes about Web and Software Tools. Don’t forget to subscribe to his feeds to get updates.
With Windows Media Player 11 installed, searching your entire music library just got better. Windows Media Player 11’s capable search modifiers can help you search your music effectively. For example, you can just narrow down to tracks from a particular artist by using the ‘Artist’ Search Modifier.
For example, Artist: Akon will search and list only the songs by Akon. Similarly, you can use the ‘Album’ operator to search for songs from a particular Album.
The useful Search Modifiers supported by Windows Media Player are here for your information:
| Desired Search | Search Modifiers |
|---|---|
| Album | Album: |
| Album Artist | AlbumArtist: |
| Artist | Artist: |
| Conductor | Conductor: |
| Composer | Composer: |
| Content Provider | ContentProvider: |
| Contributing Artist | ContributingArtist: |
| Release Date of the Album | DateReleased: |
| Genre | Genre: |
| Length of the song in seconds | Length: |
| Song Protection | Protected: |
| Song Rating | Rating: |
| Song Title | Title: |
Additionally, Windows Media Player 11 Search also supports search operators like OR, AND, NOT, “” (quotes)
For example, you can use quotes to return only the exact matches of your search term. Similarly, NOT can be used as an exclusion operator. With AND, you can get results that have ALL of your search terms.
Hope you enjoyed these Windows Media Player 11 Search Tips. Do you have anything to share with us?
Search JohnTP.com or view a random post
Related Articles
Find out what I am doing currently by .
Posted on October 7th, 2007 | Category: Softwares |
Simonne
October 7, 2007 at 1:02 pm
This is interesting. I did not know it supports operators. Thank you for the info.
JohnTP
October 7, 2007 at 1:41 pm
Nice tip, but I still prefer using Winamp for music
Haris
October 7, 2007 at 2:01 pm
Interesting tips. Thanks for sharing them. I never use WMP11 or any version of WMP. Winamp is the best!
Shankar Ganesh
October 7, 2007 at 2:01 pm
: You’re welcome Simonne.
But I’m still love some WMPlayer features.
: Ah! I use iTunes and VLC only
Uzair
October 7, 2007 at 2:24 pm
Can’t resist applying them.
JohnTP
October 7, 2007 at 2:53 pm
Shankar - I too use VLC, but for watching movies only
Shivaranjan
October 7, 2007 at 11:17 pm
I love the good old winamp, for watching movies I like wm player.
Bloddard
October 8, 2007 at 4:06 am
I like WMP11, it has a great look. But I listen to music by double clicking each song from the music folder so it makes no difference to me which player I use.
Ronald
October 8, 2007 at 10:51 am
Usually, i’ve used MP3 and to find a song just hit the Ctr+J button then type what song you need to play
Wawawewa
October 13, 2007 at 11:30 pm
WMP11 has the best search functionality, it really makes finding music easy (if uve got a big library).
John
October 16, 2007 at 6:42 am
I actually would much prefer it is MS would simply allow for an interface that would allow the user to not only organize their library by say “track, album, artist” to display each artist broken down into albums (in track order) but to then jump to the selected category (in this case artist, since it was last clicked) by simply beginning to type in the artists name on the keyboard.
The only way WMP operates is to utilize the search box to “filter” the library. This would be all well and good, if it weren’t for MS’s annoying way of leaving in quirks in its software. What bothers me is how if the library is set to shuffle, it will only play within the filtered results, even when the search box is cleared and the normal library view is displayed, or the inablility to use and of the organization categories to jump to a particular song, artist, or album… it takes a really long time to scroll down to the song I’m looking for in a library of over 15000 tracks if I just want to listen to a particular song or artist in the middle of a library shuffle play.
It may seem picky, but it’s just much easier to be able to quickly move to a particular letter just by typing it on the keyboard. MusicMatch used to work this way - it actually still does, as Yahoo Media Player, but all the features that made MusicMatch both great for organizing and easy for playback were dumped when Yahoo released its “new” software. The only reason I ever messed with WMP in the first place is because MusicMatch never supported the “last.fm” plugin that tracks and displays listener data and trends. That, and WMP 11 is nicely integrated into Vista.
Unless anyone has any suggestions after reading this sort of complicated post, I suppose I’m stuck as is until MS decides to make it better by making it simpler. I guess I could just go back to iTunes, which still gets updated customer support, or hold out that Yahoo will build a new software version that reincorporates all the functionality of the last MusicMatch Jukebox.
Shankar Ganesh
October 24, 2007 at 7:49 pm
: I use VLC when I can’t get a file playing in any other player
: Do try these tips
: Try these search operators too!
: May be these can help if you have a large music collection.
: For some reason, I’m still not using Winamp coz I don’t like its interface.
: Indeed, it has a very useful search feature.
: Hope MS is listening to you
JohnTP
October 24, 2007 at 8:21 pm
Shankar Ganesh- Have you tried the latest version of Winamp (5.5)? It has got a new skin called Bento, you may like it
Shankar Ganesh
October 24, 2007 at 8:26 pm
: Even that Bento skin didn’t impress me
Ralph Alcorn
January 9, 2008 at 8:09 am
WMP 11 has one search function that is really pathetic. When you try to lookup album info it goes to fai.music.metaservices.microsoft.com and the search argument only “ors”. Since many albums have the same title, you get hundreds of hits. It needs the “and” function. Sidenote: the reason google beat out the other search engines is that it provided the “and” function early on. I thought microsoft would have learned its lesson.
adrian tom
August 30, 2008 at 4:40 pm
in wmp 11
how can i set set album artist as the default sort order in the albums window