Marlin/docs/windows_setup.md

Marlin on Windows

This short guide covers a few tasks when running Marlin on Windows:

1. Running marlin init.
2. Moving and renaming files.
3. Verifying that tags and attributes stay linked.
4. Checking watcher performance under heavy activity.

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1 Run marlin init

1. Open PowerShell or Command Prompt.
2. Navigate to the directory you want indexed, e.g.

   cd C:\Users\You\Documents\Project
   

3. Run marlin init from that folder. The command creates the database and performs the first scan.

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2 Move and rename files

Windows Explorer renames and moves are tracked automatically when the watcher is running.

1. Start the watcher in a terminal:

   marlin watch start C:\Users\You\Documents\Project
   

2. Move or rename files/directories through Explorer or the move command.
3. The watcher logs the operations and updates the database.

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3 Verify tags and attributes

After moving or renaming files, confirm that metadata stayed linked:

marlin search "tag:mytag"         # paths should reflect new locations
marlin attr get path/to/file.txt   # attributes move with the file

If anything is missing, run a manual dirty scan:

marlin scan --dirty C:\Users\You\Documents\Project

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4 Check watcher performance

To stress-test the watcher under many events:

1. Open another terminal window and create a burst of file operations:

   1..1000 | % { New-Item -Path test$_ -ItemType File }
   1..1000 | % { Remove-Item test$_ }
   

2. Watch the original terminal for log messages and ensure the watcher keeps up without large delays.
3. For a longer test, let the watcher run overnight while copying or deleting large trees.

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End of guide