--- a/src/README
+++ b/src/README
@@ -117,10 +117,8 @@
Recoll, like most such search tools, works by remembering where terms
appear in your document files. The acquisition process is called
- indexation. The resulting database can be big (roughly the size of the
- original documents in practise). This used to be a big issue, but it is
- probably not any more, now that text documents are tiny blots among the
- sea of multimedia data, especially for a personal system.
+ indexation. The resulting database can be big, in practise, roughly the
+ size of the original document set.
Recoll is not a document archive. It can only display data from files that
still exist where they lived when they were indexed.
@@ -130,17 +128,20 @@
Indexation
By default, Recoll will index your home directory. If you want to change
- this, you need to edit the configuration file ($HOME/.recoll/recoll.conf).
- Follow the comments in the file to adjust the parameters.
+ this, you need to edit the configuration file ($HOME/.recoll/recoll.conf
+ or $RECOLL_CONFDIR/recoll.conf if RECOLL_CONFDIR is set). Follow the
+ comments in the file to adjust the parameters.
Indexation is performed either by starting the recollindex program, or the
indexing thread inside the recoll program (use the File menu).
- It is best to avoid interrupting the indexation process, as this can 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 stored in the $RECOLL_CONFDIR/xapiandb directory, which you can
- just delete when needed.
+ 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
+ $HOME/.recoll/xapiandb directory, which you can just delete when needed.
+ Alternatively, you can start recollindex -z, which will reset the database
+ before indexing.
Simple search
@@ -148,7 +149,7 @@
the top left of the window. Clicking the Search button or hitting the
Enter key will start a search. By default, this will look for documents
with any of the terms (the ones with more terms will get better scores).
- Use the Advanced search dialog for other kinds of searches
+ Use the Tools / Advanced search dialog for other kinds of searches
A list of results will be displayed in the main list window. Clicking on
an entry will open an internal preview window for the document.
@@ -158,6 +159,10 @@
Documents that you actually view (with the internal preview or an external
tool) are entered into the document history, which is remembered. You can
display the history list by using the Tools / Doc History menu entry.
+
+ By default, the document list is presented in order of relevance (how well
+ the system estimates that the document matches the query). You can specify
+ a different ordering by using the Tools / Sort parameters dialog.
Search tips, shortcuts