The result list

After starting a search, a list of results will instantly be displayed in the main window.

By default, the document list is presented in order of relevance (how well the application estimates that the document matches the query). You can sort the results by ascending or descending date by using the vertical arrows in the toolbar.

Each result is displayed as a structured text paragraph. The standard format is typically adequate, but the content and presentation are entirely customisable.

Most results will contain Preview and Open clickable links.

Clicking the Preview link will open an internal preview window for the document. Further Preview clicks for the same search will open tabs in the existing preview window. You can use Shift+Click to force the creation of another preview window, which may be useful to view the documents side by side. (You can also browse successive results in a single preview window by typing Shift+ArrowUp/Down in the window).

Clicking the Open link will start an external viewer for the document. By default, Recoll lets the desktop choose the appropriate application for most document types. See further for customising the applications.

The Preview and Open links may not be present for all entries. They are only available, respectively, for documents with MIME types that Recoll can extract text from, and for documents that have a configured viewer. However, you can modify the configuration to adjust this behavior. In more detail:

  • The Preview link will appear for documents with a MIME type present in the [index] section of the mimeconf file, and, only if the textunknownasplain configuration variable is set, for all types identified as a subtype of text (text/*).

  • The Open link will appear for documents with a MIME type present in the [view] section of the mimeview configuration file. If textunknownasplain is set and no specific viewer is found for a subtype of text, the viewer for text/plain will be used.

You can click on the Query details link at the top of the results page to see the actual Xapian query, after stem expansion and other processing.

Double-clicking on any word inside the result list or a preview window will insert it into the simple search text.

The result list is divided into pages. You can change the page size in the preferences. Use the arrow buttons in the toolbar or the links at the bottom of the page to browse the results.

No results: the spelling suggestions

When a search yields no result, and if the aspell dictionary is configured, Recoll will try to check for misspellings among the query terms, and will propose lists of replacements. Clicking on one of the suggestions will replace the word and restart the search. You can hold any of the modifier keys (Ctrl, Shift, etc.) while clicking if you would rather stay on the suggestion screen because several terms need replacement.

The result list right-click menu

Apart from the preview and edit links, you can display a pop-up menu by right-clicking over a paragraph in the result list. This menu has the following entries:

  • Preview

  • Open

  • Open With

  • Run Script

  • Copy File Name

  • Copy Url

  • Save to File

  • Find similar

  • Preview Parent document

  • Open Parent document

  • Open Snippets Window

The Preview and Open entries do the same thing as the corresponding links.

Open With (Unix-like systems) lets you open the document with one of the applications claiming to be able to handle its MIME type (the information comes from the .desktop files in /usr/share/applications).

Run Script allows starting an arbitrary command on the result file. It will only appear for results which are top-level files. See further for a more detailed description.

The Copy File Name and Copy Url copy the relevant data to the clipboard, for later pasting.

Save to File allows saving the contents of a result document to a chosen file. This entry will only appear if the document does not correspond to an existing file, but is a subdocument inside such a file (e.g.: an email attachment). It is especially useful to extract attachments with no associated editor.

The Open/Preview Parent document entries allow working with the higher level document (e.g. the email message an attachment comes from). Recoll is sometimes not totally accurate as to what it can or can't do in this area. For example the Parent entry will also appear for an email which is part of an mbox folder file, but you can't actually visualize the mbox (there will be an error dialog if you try).

If the document is a top-level file, Open Parent will start the default file manager on the enclosing filesystem directory.

The Find similar entry will select a number of relevant term from the current document and enter them into the simple search field. You can then start a simple search, with a good chance of finding documents related to the current result. I can't remember a single instance where this function was actually useful to me...

The Open Snippets Window entry will only appear for documents which support page breaks (typically PDF, Postscript, DVI). The snippets window lists extracts from the document, taken around search terms occurrences, along with the corresponding page number, as links which can be used to start the native viewer on the appropriate page. If the viewer supports it, its search function will also be primed with one of the search terms.