Album Art Finder

Moose has a built-in capability of using Google's Custom Search Engine API to make a REST call and get some images. When you try to Autotag and/or auto add artwork, and the cover art isn't found locally, a popup will... pop up and ask you if you want to use the Album Art Finder. Which you should totally do, I spent a lot of time on it!

Saying yes to this pop up will open the Album Art Finder Frame. The search query text field on this will attempt to populate with what it thinks the search will be (usually just the "Artist Album"), but sometimes it isn't as smart as it thinks and you'll need to edit the value to get what you want. Click the search button to kick the process off.

The way it work is using four different calls with different parameters to get the best results. Unfortunately, the free version of the API will only allow you to call the service 100 times/day. Since each usage of the album art finder service takes up 4 calls, you should be able to use the search function 25 times a day.
In your settings, you should find a "Preferred cover art size" field. This is the minimum size of cover art that the service will search for. I have it set to default at 640, since that's usually a good size; not too small, not too large. Plus, it's what Spotify uses for their image sizes, so if it's good enough for them, it's good enough for me.

If, for some reason, the cover artwork wasn't found in your search results, there is an alternative. Click on the "Open Google Images" button to open a new tab in your default web browser with that search pre-populated. Then you can manually save that image to use for your songs.

Hopefully, in a future release, there will be a spot on the finder frame where you can drag the image from google, and it'll create the file that way. Stay tuned for that.

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The Interface

1. The art we're searching for
2. Search Query field, this is editable and is what the service will search for
3. Search button, click this to kick off the service
4. Image source and size, the url source of the image and the original size of the image
5. Progress bar, tells you how far along the process you are
6. Image preview, self explanatory
7. Open Google Images button, opens a new google images tab in your default web browser with the search already populated
8. Confirm button, clicking this will set the cover artwork of the album you're working on, creates the file, and closes the window
9. Left/Right buttons, allows you to go through the images to choose the one you want

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Configuring the album art finder

You will need to configure the service in a few steps:

1. Go to https://cse.google.com and create a new Custom Search Engine. Name it whatever you want, like "Moose" for example. Under "Sites to Search," just put www.google.com.
2. On the next screen, click on the Control Panel button on the "Modify your search engine" field.
3. You can give a description for your search engine here, as well as provide key words to search by. I chose "spotify" and "open.spotify" since I want to prioritize spotify's images over others.
4. Flip the "Image search" slider to ON.
5. Take note of the Search Engine ID field, we'll need that later.

Now we need to create an API key so your searches are authenticated with Google.

1. Go to https://console.developers.google.com/apis/credentials and click "+ Create Credentials" near the top. This will generate a new API key.
2. Name it whatever you want, like "Moose" for example.
3. Under API Restrictions, select the "Restrict Key" radio button. Under the new dropdown, choose "Custom Search API" and hit Save.
4. Take note of your new API key, we'll need that later.

Now that we have both the CSE ID and your API key, we can go into Moose and set it up!

1. Open Moose.
2. Open the Settings window (CMD + ,)
3. Go to the API Config tab.
4. Put in your CSE ID and API key in the fields and hit Save.

You're ready to use Moose's built in album art finder!