Re: Emacs inotify support?

[Antoine Levitt]

I also think that would be a good idea. I would even argue that this would be beneficial for other files too. Current situation, either in dired or in files, is not very satisfactory : if a user has a buffer open with some file and that file changes outside emacs, he won't be notified of changes until he actually tries to modify it. Ideal case : emacs would monitor every file used by buffers, and notify of changes with the current dialog (continue, refresh, etc) in visible buffers.

Problems include : what to do if there is no notification system supported in the OS, remote files, and what would happen on very frequently modified files (ie would I be able to view a log file without being flooded by notifications). Maybe the simplest way would be to keep the default, and just provide a wrapper over inotify, a set of hooks, and let the user decide what to do.

2009/9/11 Lennart Borgman <address@hidden>

On Fri, Sep 11, 2009 at 10:34 PM,  <address@hidden> wrote:
> It would be useful with inotify support in Emacs to for example enhance
> dired. When a directory being monitored by dired changes, dired could be
> notified and refresh the view automatically. W32 has a similar feature.
>
> My personal use-case would be for image dired to automatically update
> when new images arrive from a scanner with an automatic document feeder.
>
> WDYT?

I think it would be a good idea. I asked for it some years ago.