The old search box could be resized AFAIK and with the new method of searching cuts of the search text. See below.
Here's what I'm using in this example to search for Album Artist and title,
[SearchBy]=Album Artist and Title |$trim($if2(%albumartist%,$if2(%albumartist%,$if2(%album artist%,$if2(%band%,$if2(%albumartist%,$if2(%artist%,$if2(%artist%,%discogs_artist_name%))))))) %title%)|%s