Being independent of the desktop type has its drawbacks: Recoll desktop integration is minimal. However there are a few tools available:
Users of recent Ubuntu-derived distributions, or any other Gnome desktop systems (e.g. Fedora) can install the Recoll GSSP (Gnome Shell Search Provider).
The KDE KIO Slave was described in a previous section. It can provide search results inside Dolphin.
If you use an oldish version of Ubuntu Linux, you may find the Ubuntu Unity Lens module useful.
There is also an independently developed Krunner plugin. It is now integrated in the Recoll source.
Hotkeying recoll: it is surprisingly convenient to be able to show or hide the Recoll GUI with a single keystroke. Recoll comes with a small Python script, based on the libwnck window manager interface library, which will allow you to do just this. The detailed instructions are on this wiki page.
The KDE Kicker Recoll applet: this is probably obsolete now. Anyway: The Recoll source tree contains the source code to the recoll_applet, a small application derived from the find_applet. This can be used to add a small Recoll launcher to the KDE panel.
The applet is not automatically built with the main Recoll programs, nor is it included with the main source distribution (because the KDE build boilerplate makes it relatively big). You can download its source from the recoll.org download page. Use the omnipotent
configure;make;make installincantation to build and install.You can then add the applet to the panel by right-clicking the panel and choosing the Add applet entry.
The recoll_applet has a small text window where you can type a Recoll query (in query language form), and an icon which can be used to restrict the search to certain types of files. It is quite primitive, and launches a new recoll GUI instance every time (even if it is already running). You may find it useful anyway.
