Recoll user manual | ||
---|---|---|
Prev | Chapter 4. Installation |
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.
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.
~/.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.
Paramers:
Specifies the list of directories to index (recursively).
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 tmpThe list can be redefined for subdirectories, but is only actually changed for the top level ones in topdirs
Verbosity level for recoll and recollindex. A value of 4 lists quite a lot of debug/information messages. 3 only lists errors.
Where should the messages go. 'stderr' can be used as a special value.
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.
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.
The name of the directory where recoll result list icons are stored. You can change this if you want different images.
The name of the Xapian database directory. It will be created if needed when the database is initialized.
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.
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.
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.
~/.recoll/mimemap specifies the file name extension to mime type mappings.
For file names without an extension, or with an unknown one, the system's file -i command will be executed to determine the mime type (this can be switched off inside the main configuration file).
mimemap also has a list of extensions which should be ignored totally (to avoid losing time by executing file for things that certainly should not be indexed).
The mappings can be specified on a per-subtree basis, which may be useful in some cases. Example: gaim logs have a .txt extension but should be handled specially, which is possible because they are usually all located in one place.
~/.recoll/mimeconf specifies how the different mime types are handled for indexation, and for display.
Changing the indexation parameters is probably not a good idea except if you are a Recoll developper.
You may want to adjust the external viewers defined in (ie: html is either previewed internally or displayed using firefox, but you may prefer mozilla...). Look for the [view] section.
You can also change the icons which are displayed by recoll in the result lists (the values are the basenames of the png images inside the iconsdir directory (specified in recoll.conf).