Do not block external editing

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stdedos
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Do not block external editing

Post by stdedos »

I like to use an external editor that allows editing the file when I am compiling the file.

Is there a setting or a possibility to implement this feature?
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Tracker Supp-Stefan
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Re: Do not block external editing

Post by Tracker Supp-Stefan »

Hello stdedos,

Welcome to our forums.
If I understood you correctly - you need to open the file in the Editor to preview it, but you want it to be opened read only, so that you can continue to make changes to the file in a third party tool?

I am afraid that such an option is not yet available in the Editor, but you can make lots of changes to your PDF file directly in the Editor itself.

There was a read only mode for the Viewer. This is a rather old topic - but it shows how you can open a file in read-only mode in the Viewer:
https://forum.pdf-xchange.com/ ... 782#p50782

Regards,
Stefan
stdedos
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Re: Do not block external editing

Post by stdedos »

I know that I can make a lot of changes to the PDF using this software (which has been really helpful).
However, as the post you linked, I am on the same boat - for a specific document, I write in LaTeX.

So, I guess I'd like a setting like "Use read-only mode until changes are introduced", or "Prompt reload if unsaved changes exist and file changes on-disk" or both.

Apologies for the really late reply, but I never got a notification on that on my mail :)
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Will - Tracker Supp
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Re: Do not block external editing

Post by Will - Tracker Supp »

Hi stdedos,

My understanding is that we are planning to implement something similar to the Viewer, but we don't have info. on when this would be done for now.

Thanks,
If posting files to this forum, you must archive the files to a ZIP, RAR or 7z file or they will not be uploaded.
Thank you.

Best regards

Will Travaglini
Tracker Support (Europe)
Tracker Software Products Ltd.
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dgould
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Re: Do not block external editing

Post by dgould »

Has there been any progress with the ability to prevent XChange Editor from locking whatever file it is looking at? I too use the editor with LaTeX, and this is a feature I would happily pay the upgrade price to get if it has been implemented.
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TrackerSupp-Daniel
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Re: Do not block external editing

Post by TrackerSupp-Daniel »

Hello dgould,

Unfortunately there has not been much development in this direction yet, we are looking at options for a change in file handling, but at this time it is too far away to provide a guarantee or any ideas of a timeline.

Kind regards,
Dan McIntyre - Support Technician
Tracker Software Products (Canada) LTD

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twelter
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Re: Do not block external editing

Post by twelter »

Anything new on this? It shouldnt be that much hard to implement. All it needs are some "Keep PDF files read-only until the first change is applied" and "Auto-reopen files after external change" checkboxes in the settings with a few corresponding code-behind changes.
Its a shame to be forced to have a seperate PDF viewer as a TeX output previewer installed. The XChange Editor itself would be a perfect previewer due to its performance and perfect compatibility with all the nice PDF trickery e.g. fullscreen interaction in beamer presentations.

Kind regards,
Thomas
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TrackerSupp-Daniel
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Re: Do not block external editing

Post by TrackerSupp-Daniel »

Hi, twelter

At the moment I am afraid that we do not have any news on this item. As the request has existed for so long however I can assure you that is is not quite as simple as "adding a checkbox and making just a few behind the scenes changes to the code". It will unfortunately still be a fair while before we see this feature implemented.

Kind regards,
Dan McIntyre - Support Technician
Tracker Software Products (Canada) LTD

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sepiatone
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Re: Do not block external editing

Post by sepiatone »

Is there any update on this feature?

Thank you,
~~
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Tracker Supp-Stefan
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Re: Do not block external editing

Post by Tracker Supp-Stefan »

Hello sepiatone,

If you open the file in the Editor first - it will lock it and not allow other tools to edit it.
If the file is already locked for editing by an external tool - then the Editor will open it as read only.
I am afraid that there's no way for you to tell the Editor to not lock the file if it is able to do so - as we offer many tools that do modify the file itself, and we need the file lock to be able to ensure that those tools can work correctly.

Kind regards,
Stefan
stdedos
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Re: Do not block external editing

Post by stdedos »

Can you add a button that says "Read-only" so we can click that ourselves? 😕

It's been 4 years now!
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Paul - Tracker Supp
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Re: Do not block external editing

Post by Paul - Tracker Supp »

Hi stdedos,

on further discussion about this here I am afraid I have to let you know this is not very likely to happen any time soon, if at all.

There are, as we have mentioned, a number of not at all trivial challenges with such a feature. One approach is to make a working copy of the file that can be modified leaving the original available for modification. This however requires a lot of code to monitor the original file in case it changes while we hold a copy open, then there is the challenge of making intelligent decisions on what to do with conflicts if the original file is changed while you have a "copy" open. This opens things up to potential data loss and that is definitely not something we are interested in facilitating.

The reality of the situation is that the priority of this is not high, it is complex to implement, and we have many other other tasks ahead of it. We are unlikely to deliver this any time soon I am afraid.
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Paul O'Rorke
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stdedos
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Re: Do not block external editing

Post by stdedos »

It does not sound complex to me that, if I ask PDF-XChange editor to open as/switch to read-only mode for a file, then that it does it.

No magical stuff, no "I changed my mind" - as simple as that. Python-wise speaking, do `with open(file, 'r')`, instead of `with open(file, 'rw')`.
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Re: Do not block external editing

Post by Tracker Supp-Stefan »

Hello stdedos,

Implementing a "open in read only" mode might not be too complex, but opening a file in this mode and monitoring the original is. As stated above - we are not looking at implementing such a feature for the time being!

Kind regards,
Stefan
EKey
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Re: Do not block external editing

Post by EKey »

I'd like to add my vote to the feature request.

We have a software robot which automatically generates PDF's from documents and put them to the target folder. Sure PDFs are designed to be viewed by people. And people do that - just view the generated PDF files. You can guess what happens in that situation. The file is locked by a user and the new version of the generated file cannot replace the locked PDF file. It is very bad for the business processes. We would like to set the viewer to open files in "no-lock" mode by default. We consider that option as a pretty important feature.

Is there a chance to have it considered for implementation?

Thank you,
Evgeny.
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TrackerSupp-Daniel
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Re: Do not block external editing

Post by TrackerSupp-Daniel »

Hello, EKey

So long as the document is not being overwritten by the robot, our current handling should not have any impact on it whatsoever. As was mentioned before by Paul and Stefan, this is something that is being considered, but it is vastly more complex than it appears to be.

If the application was in its infancy without oodles of features on tap, or being written anew, it would be simple to offer an option like this. But we did not include this option at the beginning, and now there are dozens of functions that rely on the current handling to work as it does, we cannot simply change it without needing to refactor a large portion of the software.

It is something that we are considering, and hopefully it will come in the future, but it is not something that will be done in any short timeframe. You can expect many months, if not years of further development before this may be implemented in our software.

Kind regards,
Dan McIntyre - Support Technician
Tracker Software Products (Canada) LTD

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