Baloo: Difference between revisions
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This means for a file's content to be indexed | This means for a file's content to be indexed | ||
* the file must have a recognizable MIME type | * the file must have a recognizable MIME type | ||
* KDE must have an extractor for that MIME type | * KDE must have an extractor for that MIME type. Use the command-line utility <code>kmimetypefinder5</code> to determine a file's mime type. | ||
** Due to a [https://gitlab.gnome.org/GNOME/glib/-/issues/2511#note_1293471 glib bug], the MIME type of HTML files can change from <code>text/html</code> to <code>application/x-extension-html</code>. The KDE file metadata extractors don't recognize the latter. That bug has a workaround to reset the MIME types to the usual values. | |||
Other limitations: | Other limitations: | ||
Revision as of 02:56, 12 January 2022
Baloo is the file indexing and file search framework for KDE Plasma, with a focus on providing a very small memory footprint along with with extremely fast searching.
Ways to communicate
- Mailing List: [email protected] (info page)
- IRC Channel: #kde-devel on freenode
- Phabricator project: https://phabricator.kde.org/project/view/261
Top bugs and feature requests
Bugs: https://bugs.kde.org/buglist.cgi?bug_severity=critical&bug_severity=grave&bug_severity=major&bug_severity=crash&bug_severity=normal&bug_severity=minor&bug_status=UNCONFIRMED&bug_status=CONFIRMED&bug_status=ASSIGNED&bug_status=REOPENED&list_id=1629910&priority=VHI&priority=HI&product=frameworks-baloo&query_format=advanced
Feature requests: https://bugs.kde.org/buglist.cgi?bug_severity=wishlist&bug_status=UNCONFIRMED&bug_status=CONFIRMED&bug_status=ASSIGNED&bug_status=REOPENED&list_id=1629911&priority=VHI&priority=HI&product=frameworks-baloo&query_format=advanced
Indexing limitations
Baloo uses the file metadata extractors in KFileMetadata to get information about each file it indexes. This means for a file's content to be indexed
- the file must have a recognizable MIME type
- KDE must have an extractor for that MIME type. Use the command-line utility
kmimetypefinder5to determine a file's mime type.- Due to a glib bug, the MIME type of HTML files can change from
text/htmltoapplication/x-extension-html. The KDE file metadata extractors don't recognize the latter. That bug has a workaround to reset the MIME types to the usual values.
- Due to a glib bug, the MIME type of HTML files can change from
Other limitations:
- Baloo doesn't index text files (those whose MIME type is detected as "text/something") over 10 MB (source).
- The KFileMetadata extractor for text attempts to convert text to Unicode. If the file uses another encoding, such as iso-8859-1, any file contents after the first character that is invalid in Unicode will not be indexed. You may find the
-ioption to thefilecommand-line utility useful; it tries to infer the character set of a file, e.g. file -i path/to/myfile.txt.
Other Baloo pages here
Information may be obsolete.
Using Baloo
Baloo is not an application, but a daemon to index files. Applications can use the Baloo framework to provide file search results. For example, Dolphin's Content search can use Baloo.
KDE System Settings > File Search provides an intentionally limited number of settings. You can make additional adjustments in Baloo's configuration file.
balooctl
balooctl is a CLI command to perform certain operations on Baloo. Enter balooctl --help in a terminal app such as userbase:Konsole to list its available subcommands.
See also Baloo/Debugging.