General search (not entity-specific)

MusicBrainz
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one minor issue I’ve had with how MusicBrainz is, there’s no general search, you can only search by entity type (release, work, artist, etc.). this was initially confusing to me, and might be confusing to newcomers to MusicBrainz.

edit: link changed to original ticket instead of duplicate

with the site redesign coming soon™, I think this is an ideal feature to add along with the new design, making the site more newcomer friendly~

in terms of how to display the results, I believe the better way is to show all the results mixed like BookBrainz, instead of categorized like RYM

I’m mostly making this post, since I wasn’t sure how to categorize the ticket above, lol

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An earlier ticket:

I’ll let a dev explain why exactly we don’t have it yet - but it is discussed pretty regularly.

The gist that I’ve gotten is basically “search is flippin hard/annoying to do well”. Apparently configuring a good solr search is it’s own occupation…

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didn’t realize there was already a ticket for it… didn’t find it in my searches… thanks @jesus2099 for linking it~

(I’ll change the link above to the original ticket)

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I would also point at Discogs search: https://www.discogs.com/search/?q=%s&type=all

I use Vivaldi browser and can setup quick searches using that above string. I often use Discogs search to find stuff on MusicBrainz. Discogs lets me slap barcodes, parts of cat numbers, and combinations of cat no and matrix details into a single box.

Meanwhile if I try and find the common album version of Pink Floyd’s “Money” using a Recording search on MusicBrainz, I find it on page 130… first having to wade past many pages of “Money money money” by Abba. :rofl: (The Money single was on page 46… and I ended up clicking another 100 pages as I am mad :crazy_face:)

Maybe there could also be a popularity sort on those results? Recordings with more releases attached floating to the top? And I have never worked out how to get a single word match.

Please don’t take this as negative… search is hard. Trouble is the current solution can be rather weird to use.

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I am not sure if popularity based search would be excellent.
But as you used the Indexed Search (same as relationship inline search), you can always add the artist name, without any technical syntax of the Advanced Search: Money Pink Floyd or even Money Floyd.

And if you know what is the disambiguation comment, it also works: Money Floyd original studio

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The search is clever - if you are clever. And are used to using it.

The tips on how to make full use of search need a higher prominence.

But real question - how do I get search to look for just “money” and not give me “money money money” first?

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Typing title and artist (and more) sounds intuitive to new users, no?
Especially for short titles like this or for titles like I love you, for which we expect to have many results.

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