[tracker/sam/readme-updates: 14/15] README: Modernize the compiling and running sections

[Sam Thursfield <sthursfield src gnome org>]

commit f87e0f984882fe8a90d304664f1a96ea131271a6
Author: Sam Thursfield <sam afuera me uk>
Date:   Tue May 21 01:58:51 2019 +0200

    README: Modernize the compiling and running sections
    
    The README instructions are aimed at developers who want to develop and
    test Tracker. We now point to the "official" workflow for developing
    GNOME core components, and we document our own tooling. We no longer
    recommend that users install anything into /usr because only
    distributions should be doing that.
    
    Fixes https://gitlab.gnome.org/GNOME/tracker/issues/105

 README.md | 92 +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++--------
 1 file changed, 81 insertions(+), 11 deletions(-)
---
diff --git a/README.md b/README.md
index 2dacfd080..14a8cf2c0 100644
--- a/README.md
+++ b/README.md
@@ -36,20 +36,90 @@ Related projects:
     extends Tracker to allow searching and indexing some kinds of online
     content.
 
+# Developing Tracker
+
+If you want to help develop and improve Tracker, great! Remember that Tracker
+is a middleware component, designed to be integrated into larger codebases. To
+fully test a change you may need to build and test Tracker as part of another
+project.
+
+For the GNOME desktop, consider using the documented [Building a System
+Component](https://wiki.gnome.org/Newcomers/BuildSystemComponent) workflow.
+
+It's also possible to build Tracker on its own and install it inside your home
+directory for testing purposes.  Read on for instructions on how to do this.
+
 ## Compilation
 
-To setup the project for compilation after checking it out from
-the git repository, use:
+Tracker uses the [Meson build system](http://mesonbuild.com), which you must
+have installed in order to build Tracker.
+
+We recommend that you build tracker core as a subproject of tracker-miners.
+You can do this by cloning both repos, then creating a symlink in the
+`subprojects/` directory of tracker-miners.git to the tracker.git checkout.
+
+    git clone https://gitlab.gnome.org/GNOME/tracker.git
+    git clone https://gitlab.gnome.org/GNOME/tracker-miners.git
+
+    mkdir tracker-miners/subprojects
+    ln -s ../../tracker tracker-miners/subprojects/
+
+Now you can run the commands below to build Tracker and install it in a
+new, isolated prefix named `opt/tracker` inside your home folder.
+
+    cd tracker-miners
+    meson ./build --prefix=$HOME/opt/tracker -Dtracker_core=subproject
+    cd build
+    ninja install
+
+## Running the testsuite
+
+At this point you can run the Tracker test suite from the `build` directory:
+
+    meson test --print-errorlogs
+
+## Developing with tracker-sandbox
+
+Tracker normally runs automatically, indexing content in the background so that
+search results are available quickly when needed.
+
+When developing and testing Tracker you will normally want it to run in the
+foreground instead. The `tracker-sandbox` tool exists to help with this.
+
+You can run the tool directly from the tracker.git source tree. Ensure you are
+in the top of the tracker source tree and type this to see the --help output: 
+
+    ./utils/sandbox/tracker-sandbox.py --help
+
+You should always pass the `--prefix` option, which should be the same as the
+--prefix argument you passed to Meson. You also need to use `--index` which
+controls where internal state files like the database are kept. You may also
+want to pass `--debug` to see detailed log output.
+
+Now you can index some files using `--update` mode. Here's how to index files
+in `~/Documents` for example:
+
+    ./utils/sandbox/tracker-sandbox.py  --prefix ~/opt/tracker --index ~/tracker-content \
+        --update --content ~/Documents
+
+You can then list the files that have been indexed...
+
+    ./utils/sandbox/tracker-sandbox.py  --prefix ~/opt/tracker --index ~/tracker-content \
+        --list-files
+
+... run a full-text search ...
+
+    ./utils/sandbox/tracker-sandbox.py  --prefix ~/opt/tracker --index ~/tracker-content \
+        --search "bananas"
 
-        meson build --prefix=/usr --sysconfdir=/etc
+... or run a SPARQL query on the content:
 
-To start compiling the project use:
+    ./utils/sandbox/tracker-sandbox.py  --prefix ~/opt/tracker --index ~/tracker-content \
+        --sparql "SELECT ?url { ?resource a nfo:FileDataObject ; nie:url ?url . }"
 
-        ninja -C build
-        ninja install
+You can also open a shell inside the sandbox environment. From here you can run
+the `tracker` commandline tool, and you can run the Tracker daemons manually
+under a debugger such as GDB.
 
-If you install using any other prefix, you might have problems
-with files not being installed correctly. (You may need to copy
-and amend the dbus service file to the correct directory and/or
-might need to update ld_conf if you install into non-standard
-directories.)
+For more information about developing Tracker, look at
+https://wiki.gnome.org/Projects/Tracker.