How can I make WMP 11 index an un-indexed field in its "Library" window (as it does with Genre, Albums, Release Date, etc.) so it can be found using WMP's Search feature? What tells WMP which fields to index? I'm sure it's in a file somewhere, as a program does nothing arbitrarily. I simply want to alter it slightly, so that I can easily access other musicians involved with a song, such as backup vocals, additional instruments, etc.
Here's an example of what I want to do: If I enter "John Lennon" in the Search line, I want to retrieve:
-- his solo work
-- his work with the Beatles
-- Elton John's rendition of Lucy In the Sky With Diamonds with John Lennon singing background vocals
-- his John Lennon and the Plastic Ono Band work
-- any other songs in my collection that he composed
Currently, this Search returns only the first and last of the items, and a few of the middle three items -- but only if he was a composer, as "Composer" is an indexed field (such as the Elton John song). But it will not pull up items he performed on merely because he was a performer (which would include all of his work with the Beatles that he did not compose).
I initially tied to do this by editing the "Custom 1" tag in the the wmploc.dll file to read "Performers" (in the same way one can edit the genre list). This is when I learned that the Search feature only indexes a limited number of fields chosen by Microsoft, and the "Custom 1" field isn't among them.
Although one could use the "Contributing Artist" field to do this, it's impractical to list more than one name or band there because:
-- This is the primary field for accessing the main performer of a song on an album or CD with "Various Artists" (such as on a compilation album)
-- MS Plus! for Windows (as well as other programs) uses the "Contributing Artist" field contents for retrieving the main performer when creating CD labels.
I'm mostly into music -- but imagine the value to a movie collector if you could designate the fields to index? Directors, scores, set designers, special effects crew, etc. The value is incredible, but our hands are tied to only what Microsoft has provided.
I was a librarian for nearly 20 years; I know I should be able to provide better indexing and access to my collection.
(Please note this question is a vast refinement of a question I posted last week. I got new information, and felt some clarification could be useful.)
PS: Windows XP Pro SP3 is operating system.
