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src/INSTALL
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@ -78,5 +78,5 @@ More documentation can be found in the doc/ directory or at http://www.recoll.or
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
Prev Home Next
Search tips, shortcuts Installing a prebuilt copy
Prev Home Next
Customising the search interface Installing a prebuilt copy

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src/README
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@ -10,8 +10,8 @@ More documentation can be found in the doc/ directory or at http://www.recoll.or
Copyright (c) 2005 Jean-Francois Dockes
The Recoll user manual introduces full text search notions and describes
the installation and use of the Recoll application.
This document introduces full text search notions and describes the
installation and use of the Recoll application.
[ Split HTML / Single HTML ]
@ -37,7 +37,7 @@ More documentation can be found in the doc/ directory or at http://www.recoll.or
2.4. Using cron to automate indexation
3. Searching
3. Search
3.1. Simple search
@ -45,7 +45,11 @@ More documentation can be found in the doc/ directory or at http://www.recoll.or
3.3. Document history
3.4. Search tips, shortcuts
3.4. Result list sorting
3.5. Search tips, shortcuts
3.6. Customising the search interface
4. Installation
@ -77,9 +81,10 @@ More documentation can be found in the doc/ directory or at http://www.recoll.or
1.1. Giving it a try
If you do not like reading manuals and would like to give Recoll a try,
just perform installation and start the recoll user interface, which will
index your home directory and let you search it right after.
If you do not like reading manuals (who does?) and would like to give
Recoll a try, just perform installation and start the recoll user
interface, which will index your home directory and let you search it
right after.
Do not do this if your home has a huge number of documents and you do not
want to wait or are very short on disk space. In this case, you may want
@ -94,11 +99,12 @@ More documentation can be found in the doc/ directory or at http://www.recoll.or
1.2. Full text search
Full text search applications allow you to find your data by content
rather than by external attributes (like a file name). More specifically,
they will let you specify words (terms) that should or should not appear
in the text you are looking for, and return a list of matching documents,
ordered so that the most relevant documents will appear first.
Recoll is a full text search application. Full text search applications
let you find your data by content rather than by external attributes (like
a file name). More specifically, they will let you specify words (terms)
that should or should not appear in the text you are looking for, and
return a list of matching documents, ordered so that the most relevant
documents will appear first.
You do not need to remember in what file or email message you stored a
given piece of information. You just ask for related terms, and the tool
@ -111,7 +117,7 @@ More documentation can be found in the doc/ directory or at http://www.recoll.or
application can only try a guess. The quality of this guess is probably
the most important element for a search application.
In many cases, one is looking for all the forms of a word, not for a
In many cases, you are looking for all the forms of a word, not for a
specific form or spelling. These different forms may include plurals,
different tenses for a verb, or terms derived from the same root or stem
(exemple: floor, floors, floored, floorings...). Recoll will by default
@ -119,17 +125,16 @@ More documentation can be found in the doc/ directory or at http://www.recoll.or
stem). This expansion can be disabled at search time.
Stemming, by itself, does not provide for misspellings or phonetic
searches. Recoll does not support these currently.
searches. Recoll currently does not support these.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
1.3. Recoll overview
Recoll is a full text search application which uses the Xapian information
retrieval library as its storage and retrieval engine. Xapian is a very
mature package using a sophisticated probabilistic ranking model. Recoll
provides the interface to get data into (indexation) and out (searching)
of the system.
Recoll uses the Xapian information retrieval library as its storage and
retrieval engine. Xapian is a very mature package using a sophisticated
probabilistic ranking model. Recoll provides the interface to get data
into (indexation) and out (searching) of the system.
In practice, Xapian works by remembering where terms appear in your
document files. The acquisition process is called indexation.
@ -144,10 +149,10 @@ More documentation can be found in the doc/ directory or at http://www.recoll.or
Stemming depends on the document language. Recoll stores the unstemmed
versions of terms and uses auxiliary databases for term expansion. It can
switch stemming languages without reindexing. Storing documents in
different languages in the same database is possible, and useful in
practice, but does introduce possibilities of confusion. Recoll makes no
attempt at automatic language recognition.
switch stemming languages, or add a language, without reindexing. Storing
documents in different languages in the same database is possible, and
useful in practice, but does introduce possibilities of confusion. Recoll
makes no attempt at automatic language recognition.
Recoll has many parameters which define exactly what to index, and how to
classify and decode the source documents. These are kept in a
@ -158,7 +163,7 @@ More documentation can be found in the doc/ directory or at http://www.recoll.or
you may want to adjust it later.
Indexation is started automatically the first time you execute the recoll
search graphical user interface, or by executing the recollindex.
search graphical user interface, or by executing the recollindex command.
Searches are performed inside the recoll program, which has many options
to help you find what you are looking for.
@ -174,9 +179,9 @@ More documentation can be found in the doc/ directory or at http://www.recoll.or
incremental: documents will only be processed if they have been modified.
On the first execution, of course, all documents will need processing. A
full index build can be forced later on by specifying an option to the
indexation command.
indexation command (recollindex -z).
Recoll indexation takes place at discrete times. There is no currently no
Recoll indexation takes place at discrete times. There is currently no
interface to real time file modification monitors. The typical usage is to
have a nightly indexation run programmed into your cron file.
@ -186,6 +191,10 @@ More documentation can be found in the doc/ directory or at http://www.recoll.or
document. Some file types, like mail folder files can hold many
individually indexed documents.
Recoll indexation processes plain text, HTML, openoffice and e-mail files
internally. Other types (ie: postscript, pdf, ms-word, rtf) need external
applications for preprocessing. The list is in the installation section.
Without further configuration, Recoll will index all appropriate files
from your home directory, with a reasonable set of defaults, if you live
in western Europe or the USA. If your normal character set is not
@ -203,8 +212,8 @@ More documentation can be found in the doc/ directory or at http://www.recoll.or
If you want to adjust the configuration before indexation, just click
Cancel when the program asks if it should start initial indexation.
You can also have a look to the configuration overview inside the
installation chapter of this document.
The configuration is also documented inside the installation chapter of
this document, or in the recoll.conf(5) man page.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
@ -219,7 +228,7 @@ More documentation can be found in the doc/ directory or at http://www.recoll.or
It is best to avoid interrupting the indexation process, as this may
sometimes leave the database in a bad state. This is not a serious
problem, as you then just need to clear everything and restart the
indexation. The database files are normally stored in the
indexation: the database files are normally stored in the
$HOME/.recoll/xapiandb directory, which you can just delete if needed.
Alternatively, you can start recollindex -z, which will reset the database
before indexation.
@ -240,7 +249,12 @@ More documentation can be found in the doc/ directory or at http://www.recoll.or
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Chapter 3. Searching
Chapter 3. Search
The recoll program provides the user interface for searching. It is based
on the QT library.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
3.1. Simple search
@ -277,7 +291,8 @@ More documentation can be found in the doc/ directory or at http://www.recoll.or
It will let you restrict the search results to a subtree of the indexed
area.
In other respects, it works like the simple search.
Click on the Start Search button in the advanced search dialog to start
the search. The button in the main window always performs a simple search.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
@ -289,12 +304,27 @@ More documentation can be found in the doc/ directory or at http://www.recoll.or
----------------------------------------------------------------------
3.4. Search tips, shortcuts
3.4. Result list sorting
The documents in a result list are normally sorted in order of relevance.
It is possible to specify different sort parameters by using the Sort
parameters dialog (located in the Tools menu).
The tool sorts a specified number of the most relevant documents in the
result list, according to specified criteria. The currently available
criteria are date and mime type.
The sort parameters stay in effect until they are explicitely reset, or
the program exits.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
3.5. Search tips, shortcuts
Disabling stem expansion. Entering a capitalized word in any search field
will prevent stem expansion (no search for gardening if you enter Garden
instead of garden). This is the only case where character case will make a
difference for a Recoll search.
instead of garden). This is the only case where character case should make
a difference for a Recoll search.
Phrases. A phrase can be looked for by enclosing it in double quotes.
Example: "user manual" will look only for occurrences of user immediately
@ -306,6 +336,23 @@ More documentation can be found in the doc/ directory or at http://www.recoll.or
Closing previews. Entering ^W in a preview tab will close it (and, for the
last tab, close the preview window).
----------------------------------------------------------------------
3.6. Customising the search interface
It is possible to customise some aspects of the search interface by using
Query configuration entry in the Preferences menu.
There are two tabs in the dialog, to modify the appearance of the user
interface (result list appearance), or the parameters used for searching
(language used for stem expansion).
The stemming language can be chosen among those that were specified in the
configuration file, or later added with recollindex -s (See the
recollindex manual). Stemming languages which are dynamically added will
be deleted at the next indexation pass unless they are also added in the
configuration file.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Chapter 4. Installation
@ -398,40 +445,139 @@ More documentation can be found in the doc/ directory or at http://www.recoll.or
4.3. Configuration overview
The personal configuration files and the database are kept in the .recoll
directory in your home. If this directory does not exist when recoll or
The personal configuration files and the database are normally kept in the
.recoll directory in your home (this can be changed with the
RECOLL_CONFDIR environment variable, and a parameter inside the main
configuration file). If this directory does not exist when recoll or
recollindex are started, the directory will be created and the sample
configuration files will be copied. recoll will give you a chance to edit
the configuration file before starting indexation. recollindex will
proceed immediately.
Recoll uses text configuration files. You will have to edit them by hand
for now (there is still some hope for a GUI configuration tool in the
future). The most accurate documentation for the configuraton parameters
is given by comments inside the sample files, and we will just give a
general overview here.
Most of the parameters specific to the recoll GUI are set through the
Preferences menu and stored in the standard QT place ($HOME/.qt/recollrc).
You probably do not want to edit this by hand.
For other options, Recoll uses text configuration files. You will have to
edit them by hand for now (there is still some hope for a GUI
configuration tool in the future). The most accurate documentation for the
configuration parameters is given by comments inside the sample files, and
we will just give a general overview here.
All configuration files share the same format. For exemple, a short
extract of the main configuration file might look as follows:
# Space-separated list of directories to index.
topdirs = ~/docs /usr/share/doc
[~/somedirectory-with-utf8-txt-files]
defaultcharset = utf-8
There are three kinds of lines:
* Comment (starts with #) or empty.
* Parameter affectation (name = value).
* Section definition ([somedirname]).
Section lines allow redefining some parameters for a directory subtree.
Some of the parameters used for indexation are looked up hierarchically
from the more to the less specific. Not all parameters can be meaningfully
redefined, this is specified for each in the next section.
The tilde character (~) is expanded in file names to the name of the
user's home directory.
White space is used for separation inside lists. Elements with embedded
spaces can be quoted using double-quotes.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
4.3.1. Main configuration file
~/.recoll/recoll.conf is the main configuration file. It defines what to
index (top directories and things to ignore), and the default character
set to use (for document types which do not specify it internally). The
default character set can be specified separately for any directory
subtree.
~/.recoll/recoll.conf is the main configuration file. It defines things
like what to index (top directories and things to ignore), and the default
character set to use for document types which do not specify it
internally.
The default configuration will index your home directory. If this is not
appropriate, use recoll to copy the sample configuration, click Cancel,
and edit the configuration file before restarting the command. This will
start the initial indexation, which may take some time.
There are also miscellaneous other parameters inside recoll.conf. Explore
and enjoy :)
Paramers:
topdirs
Specifies the list of directories to index (recursively).
skippedNames
A space-separated list of patterns for names of files or
directories that should be completely ignored. The list defined in
the default file is:
*~ #* bin CVS Cache caughtspam tmp
The list can be redefined for subdirectories, but is only actually
changed for the top level ones in topdirs
loglevel
Verbosity level for recoll and recollindex. A value of 4 lists
quite a lot of debug/information messages. 3 only lists errors.
logfilename
Where should the messages go. 'stderr' can be used as a special
value.
filtersdir
A directory to search for the external filter scripts used to
index some types of files. The value should not be changed, except
if you want to modify one of the default scripts. The value can be
redefined for any subdirectory.
indexstemminglanguages
A list of languages for which the stem expansion databases will be
built. See recollindex(1) for possible values. You can add a stem
expansion database for a different language by using recollindex
-s, but it will be deleted during the next indexation. Only
languages listed in the configuration file are permanent.
iconsdir
The name of the directory where recoll result list icons are
stored. You can change this if you want different images.
dbdir
The name of the Xapian database directory. It will be created if
needed when the database is initialized.
defaultcharset
The name of the character set used for files that do not contain a
character set definition (ie: plain text files). This can be
redefined for any subdirectory.
guesscharset
Decide if we try to guess the character set of files if no
internal value is available (ie: for plain text files). This does
not work well in general, and should probably not be used.
usesystemfilecommand
Decide if we use the file -i system command as a final step for
determining the mime type for a file (the main procedure uses
suffix associations as defined in the mimemap file). This can be
useful for files with suffixless names, but it will also cause the
indexation of many bogus "text" files.
----------------------------------------------------------------------