# Search Template Editor

The template editor is used to create and modify search templates.

Tabs and newline characters may be used to provide formatting to make it easier to read the template. They are ignored when utilizing the template. Space characters are meaningful and are displayed as a centered-dot character to make it easier to see them. The Format button can be used to apply formatting to the current template. If for any reason you want to remove the formatting and display the template as a single line of text, hold down the Shift key and click on the Format button.

Tokens are inserted via the Add Token button or via the context menu. Holding down the Control key while entering an alphabetic character will display an abbreviated menu displaying only those menu items beginning with the specified character.

The font size can be changed by Font>Bigger (⌘+) and Font>Smaller(⌘-)

You can preview and optionally apply the template by the Preview button.

Typically you insert one and only one (Metadata) token to specify where the metadata should be inserted into a URL. The (Metadata) token determines which metadata to insert from whatever checkboxes you have selected (Album, Artist, Album Artist, Composer and Title). It is usually better to use Album Artist as opposed to Artist. Album Artist imposes the following rules:

- If the Album Artist field is empty, Artist will be substituted.
- If the Album Artist field starts with the word various, the field will be ignored.

If for any reson, you require finer granularity as to where and how the metadata gets inserted into the URL, you can specify (Album), (Artist), (Album Artist), (Composer) and (Title) tokens. Note that the checkboxes of the same name are ignored unless a (Metadata) token is specified. The (Album Artist) token has the same semantics as described above.

Use Clipboard provides a means of accessing sites which will not take the search criteria as part of the URL. These sites typically require you to enter the data in a search field on their site. At runtime the selected metadata will be placed into the system clipboard. You can then paste it into the required search field on the web page which is loaded from the Site URL When Use Clipboard is specified, no tokens can be placed in the template field. The field checkboxes determine what is copied to the clipboard.

If Use Clipboard is selected, or if a (Metadata) token is specified, the function will fail if no metadata is available. The lack of available data for an (Album), (Artist), (Album Artist), (Composer) or (Title) token is ignored.