Ideas for new functions (overhaul) of the search page

[andreoda]

I opened this issue to have a place to discuss/show and collect some possible functions for the future and existing options on the search page. I know that some or most of them are already possible by using the API but most people do not know how to do that.

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Features that are missing on the search page:

• searching by a release/publish date range (for example: from 2007 - 2010) (currently it is only possible to search by a specific year, month or day)
• album search: searching by release event

Some counterparts to existing options:

• "Has no publish date" (counterpart to "Has publish date")
• "Only finished / approved / locked" entries (counterpart to "Only drafts")
• "Not in my collection" (counterpart to "In my collection")

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Existing GitHub issues regarding the search page functions:

• More filters for search: media/source type (https://github.com/VocaDB/vocadb/issues/1517)
• More filters for search and edit mode: languages/lyrics+ (https://github.com/VocaDB/vocadb/issues/940)
• A "root event" filter for the event search page (https://github.com/VocaDB/vocadb/issues/1518)
• Allow users to exclude tags in the search (https://github.com/VocaDB/vocadb/issues/1332)
• Search page function "in my collection" additions (https://github.com/VocaDB/vocadb/issues/1104)
• A search page for venues (https://github.com/VocaDB/vocadb/issues/1565)
• Sort options for the tag search (https://github.com/VocaDB/vocadb/issues/1564)
• A search page for discussions (https://github.com/VocaDB/vocadb/issues/832)

Others: https://github.com/VocaDB/vocadb/issues?q=is%3Aissue+is%3Aopen+label%3Asearch

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More ideas from Discord discussions:

1. more functions + include/exclude
   • https://discord.com/channels/309072240639737866/666326527197315091/948985084298539090
   • https://discord.com/channels/309072240639737866/666326527197315091/948986563289808936 (https://github.com/VocaDB/vocadb/issues/1577) (https://github.com/VocaDB/vocadb/issues/1584)
2. better voice synth/voicebank search
   • https://discord.com/channels/309072240639737866/666326527197315091/894654417410867210
   • https://discord.com/channels/309072240639737866/666326527197315091/894648906594533446

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Additional parameters

• https://wiki.vocadb.net/wiki/33/search-terms-cheat-sheet These cheats should be more visible for users to see/find. Not many know about these. It probably would be best to display them somewhere on the search page.

[FinnRG]

Mentioned on discord: A new "No languages" advanced filter for artists/songs.

[saturclay]

I have a couple things I'd like to suggest here

1. Building on the point about album searching, it would be nice if the search functionality for albums was as robust as it is for songs. Currently, you can't search for album by date, event, language, or duration like you can for songs.

1a. As an addendum regarding duration, this is a lower-priority matter, but it would be useful if you could set duration for custom tracks, since right now if there are any custom tracks on an album, it won't show the album's duration, even if all the non-custom tracks have lengths specified.

2. Even though a producer's "most used languages" show up on their page, if you try to search artists by language, it only includes voice synthesizers where the language has been set. This basically makes the function useless on TouhouDB and UtaiteDB.

2a. Also regarding languages, I think it would make sense for (human) vocalists and lyricists to also have their most used languages displayed/searchable. Once it's possible to search albums, producers, vocalists, and lyricists by language, then the language tags can finally be completely retired.