Re: Feature suggestion: file reload

[Ed Schofield <schofield ftw at>]

On 12/09/2006, at 5:41 PM, Bryan Clark wrote:

> Roderich Schupp wrote:
> > > But what some of us really would like to see is a "watch file"  
> > > feature
> > > making automatic reloads.  "gv" and "xdvi" have this feature.
> >
> > This has come up repeatedly on the list before, google for
> > "evince reload site:mail.gnome.org", read the first few hits and also
> > http://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=304249
> Also helps to search for "evince watch file site:mail.gnome.org" to  
> get
> other relevant hits.  This feature has been a willow in the winds for
> sometime now.
>
> In some original user research we found that people doing latex didn't
> want an auto file reload because they would like to compare latex
> changes.  Using a manual ctrl-R reload allowed for this to happen,
> having two instances of a document open allowed you to refresh one and
> zoom in on changes to compare to the stale instance.  Of course not  
> too
> long after that we made Evince keep a 1:1 document to window ratio  
> which
> you would assume breaks the use case of those latex users we  
> originally
> talked to.  However no one seems to be filing bugs about not being  
> able
> to open a document more than once so perhaps we don't have that  
> audience
> or they just don't use evince that way?  I don't know.
> There were suggestions for ways to still compare changes with an
> auto-reload system, but it involves check box items hidden where  
> people
> won't really find them or in the open where they are completely
> confusing to most people.  Neither situation is ideal.  I remember  
> some
> ideas about using command line options as well.
>
> Now since we've long had this 1:1 ratio of document to evince without
> much complaint AFAIK I don't see why we don't have a file watch on  
> every
> file evince has opened.  It seems we've always had some issues that  
> need
> to be overcome in the back end regarding the reloading but the idea of
> the feature seems sound.

I agree completely.

I'm a LaTeX user. I can imagine it being useful occasionally to  
compare an old document against a new one. Auto file reload wouldn't  
be a hindrance to me at all -- I would merely make a copy of the old  
document under a different name to view it side-by-side with the new  
document. I don't think it's worth complicating the design of evince  
just to offer such a feature. I suppose many LaTeX users have scripts  
to compile their documents anyway, and adding "cp file.pdf  
oldfile.pdf" would make the process automatic. Less savvy users could  
easily duplicate the file with Nautilus.

-- Ed