Settings:File handling:File change detection

The File handling » File change detection branch of Settings includes setting that allow you to control the behavior when the active file is updated externally (outside of the editor).

File change detection

• Disable
  If selected, the editor will not check the file on disk for external changes. Any changes you make and save to the file would overwrite any external changes with no prompt or warning.
• Prompt for update when files change
  If selected, the editor will prompt you when external changes are detected for a file. You can choose to load the external version of the file (in which case any unsaved changes to the file in the editor will be lost), or ignore the changes.
• Automatically update changed files
  If selected, the editor will reload the file with external changes as soon as they're detected, and any unsaved changes to the file will be overwritten automatically without prompting.

When a file is detected as changed and reloaded, make it active

This setting forces the editor to make active any file it reloads due to external changes. The default setting is to not make the file active.

Ignore file changes if the file was deleted

This setting causes the editor not to prompt you if it detects that a file was deleted (externally). By default, this is not set, and the editor will prompt you that a file has been deleted when file change detection is enabled.

Check files for changes on application focus change

If this option is selected, files will only be checked for external changes when UltraEdit / UEStudio receives focus (when switching from another application or from a dialog within the application) rather than checking automatically at predefined intervals.

Check active file only

If this option is selected, only the active file will be checked for external changes when file change detection is enabled. This can improve performance if many files are open at the same time, especially if they're from a slower network.

Poll for file changes at forced interval in seconds (0 disables)

This setting determines the interval in seconds at which the editor checks for changes to files when file change polling has been activated using in the View tab. Set to "0" to disable file change polling completely.

When a file marked for polling is detected as changed scroll to the last line in the file (used for tailing log files)

This setting forces the editor to always jump to the last line in a file that is being updated by file change polling. This is similar to the Unix tail command.