Open Source Projects Europe

--- a/src/windows/00-WINDOWS-BUILD.txt
+++ b/website/pages/recoll-windows.txt
@@ -1,72 +1,63 @@
-= Building Recoll on Windows
+= Trying out Recoll on Windows
 
-The port of Recoll to Windows was begun using Microsoft VS 2015, and
-there are functional project files for recollindex and recollq in this
-directory.
+The Windows port of Recoll has reached a point where it can be tested. At
+least, it will not break your system, and it does not crash too often.
 
-However, no version of Qt supporting VS 2015 was available when needed
-(10-2015), so that the port was completed using the MinGW version of Qt.
+It was only built and tried on Windows 7.
 
-At this point it is easiest to use MinGW for everything.
+We would be very eager to get some feedback from some actual Windows user
+(I am only a visitor to Windows...). Is this useful at all ? What would 
+make more useful ? 
 
-Both the GUI and the non-GUI parts (library, recollindex, recollq) are
-built using Qt qmake/qcreator projects:
+There is no installer for the moment, the program and its auxiliary files
+are stored in a Zip file. This is quite big, because it contains a good
+part of the Qt 5.5.0 dlls (I can't produce a static build because of WebKit).
 
-  windows/qmkrecoll/librecoll.pro
-  windows/qmkrecoll/recollq.pro
-  windows/qmkrecoll/recollindex.pro
-  qtgui/recoll.pro
+The Zip creates a `recoll` directory. As far as I know, there is no
+assumption where it should reside, I use `c:/recoll`, but anywhere
+else should be ok.
 
-Only the names of the intermediary files (xapian and recoll libs) should
-need adjustment in the project files. Just open librecoll.pro in qtcreator,
-build it, see where it puts the lib, and adjust the other files.
+http://www.lesbonscomptes.com/recoll/windows/[Download directory]
 
-== Walkthrough
+Besides extracting the Zip, you need to:
 
-Here follows a tentative recipee for building recoll on windows 7. This was
-reconstructed after actually doing it, and not tried again on a pristine
-system, so there may be things missing
+ - Download and install Python 2.7 from
+   https://www.python.org/downloads/release/python-2710/. Most Recoll data
+   extraction filters have at least a Python part, so you will not be able
+   to do much without this.
+ - Download and install the 7-zip program from http://www.7-zip.org/. This
+   is only useful if you need to index compressed files.
 
- - Install Qt 5.x, use the MinGW binary version
+ - Update your PATH variable with the locations of the `python` and `7z`
+   executables.
 
- - Install the current version of MinGW, possibly check compatibility with
-   the one which comes with Qt (versions not too far away). The reason for
-   doing this is that the Qt copy does not come with msys, which is
-   convenient for working with non-qmake projects (zlib and Xapian).
-
- - Start a command window with the appropriate MinGW/Msys environment (use
-   MinGW/msys/x.x/msys.bat). All the following is done from the msys window
-   (so that commands like tar etc. are available). Except for the
-   qt-creator parts of course.
-
- - Extract zlib (use a tar distrib and msys tar).
- - From the top of the extracted zlib tree, as from instructions inside
-   Makefile.gcc: 
-        make -fwin32/Makefile.gcc
-        make test testdll -fwin32/Makefile.gcc
-
- - Extract xapian
- - Configure with:
-     LDFLAGS=-Lc:/recolldeps/zlib-1.2.8 \
-     CPPFLAGS=-Ic:/recolldeps/zlib-1.2.8 \
-     ./configure
-    (Change according to where you built zlib, of course).
- - make
- - This will produce .libs/libxapian-22.dll which I just used in the recoll
-   .pro files and also copied into the install bin directory.
-
- - Then update the .pro files with the Xapian location (includes and lib)
- - Build librecoll.pro
- - Update the other project files with the librecoll location
- - Build them
- - Update the windows/mkinstdir.sh with the actual locations of the libs etc.
-
-Curiously, there does not seem to be a need to copy zlib1.dll to the
-install dir ???
-
-Then build unrtf and antiword (or get them from somewhere...). Update, then
-finally run mkinstdir.sh
-
-You should have a working recoll installation.
+   * From Windows Explorer, click `Computer` in the left pane, then 
+     `System Properties` from the top, then `Avanced System Settings` from
+     the left pane, then `Environment Variables` at the bottom of the
+     popup. 
+   * Check that the locations for `python` (`C:\Python27`), and `7z`
+     (`C:\Program Files\7-Zip`) are either in the User or System PATH
+     variable. If they are not in there already , update or create the user
+     PATH and add them as: `C:\Python27;C:\Program Files\7-Zip` (use a
+     semi-colon as separator).
 
 
+Know problems:
+
+ - The default result list font is particularly ugly. Change it from 
+   `Preferences->GUI Configuration->Result List->Result List Font`
+
+ - The GUI sometimes crashes when you click `Preview` or `Open`. This does
+   not occur often, and usually for one of the first tries after starting
+   the program. Don't despair.
+
+ - There is no real-time or scheduled indexing as on Linux. For now, you
+   create and update the index by using the `File` menu (or executing
+   `recollindex.exe` from a command window).
+
+ - I'm quite convinced that there are still problems with file path case
+   insensitivity. The best approach when setting up the config is
+   to use the exact case for now.
+
+ - I'll add the others here as they are found ...
+