[ubuntu-in] need desktop search tool

[Swarup]

On Fri, 2011-06-17 at 16:24 -0400, Swarup wrote:
> On Sat, 2011-06-18 at 01:34 +0530, Mehul Ved wrote:
> > On Sat, Jun 18, 2011 at 12:33 AM, Swarup <dinbandhu at sprynet.com>
> > wrote:
> >         I have looked at the alternatives. The first two-- Tracker and
> >         Google
> >         Desktop, do not search properly using Indic fonts. Strigi and
> >         Recoll I
> >         will test to see how well they work. It seems like Strigi may
> >         be a
> >         terminal-based app, which if it is, automatically rules out
> >         Indic fonts
> >         as one cannot properly type in the terminal window using Indic
> >         fonts (at
> >         least the ones I use). Recoll I will test. DocFetcher and
> >         Pinot are two
> >         others which are mentioned in the referenced article. I will
> >         have a look
> >         at those. If anyone else has experience with these search
> >         tools and
> >         Indic fonts, please tell us about them.
> > 
> > Doesn't the inbuilt search tool in GNOME suffice?
> > I gave it a try and it is able to detect hindi words in a plain text
> > file.
> 
> You are right-- I just tested it again and it seems to be working. I'll
> have to try using it more to make sure it is accurate. But there are
> still some important missing elements in this search tool: 
> 
> 1. It does not pre-index, and so takes time.
> 2. It does not show you the sentence in which it found the word.
> 3. Now with further testing, it seems to be missing more complex words
> when I search on them. I will test this more to confirm.
> 
> Thank you though for pointing this out. I will give a more detailed
> report on this search tool after testing it more.

Writing in to report that I've installed and tested the app called
"Recoll", fairly extensively. I think it is even better than Beagle. It
does pre-indexing, searches perfectly, shows you the sentence in which
it found the word, and offers to open a preview window in which all the
places in that document where it found the word, will be highlighted. It
is the most advanced search tool I've used so far. Google desktop cannot
compare, rather it is quite useless for my purposes, as it cannot search
documents using Indic Fonts. 

Conclusion: Recoll is a great desktop search tool, and especially the
more so as it searches Indic Fonts perfectly.

Swarup