Sure…but that’s why I said “reasonably”.
It’s certainly easy to just talk about it and not try to implement it.

Please make this feature request to a higher power than the author of N++ (because I don’t really see how both things – editing and an external app making changes – can reasonably be accomplished).

If you type a character then the edit buffer is dirty. If npp detects a change by an external app then you get the pop-up asking if you want to keep your changes or reload.

To do it right, saving your changes would require some cleanup to the npp code as we want to lock the file open and while locked do the final check of the size and time stamps for changes by external apps. If the file is unchanged you then write the data. This makes the save an atomic operation. At present npp is using wrappers that end up doing multiple checks and then doing the final open for writing. There’s a timing window within the wrapper where an external apps changes could be lost. That’s why npp currently does not allow you to make changes to the file when it’s in monitor mode.

The Win32 API has always had good support for safely allowing multiple processes or threads to make changes to a shared file. Starting with Windows Vista file locking also works on network shares.

What he mentioned about it coming up later, and I can’t/won’t test this as I have no interest in cloud based backups, is that maybe he has MS OneDrive being used unaware to him and it’s having a delay between the app being notified or it changing it on the drive, and then the One drive and it then triggering the box…otherwise, I’ve explained prior how I use both apps at the same time, and fortunately, once you do it once and realize how the monitor works, you remember to save the changed file so as to not lose changes.

If you have a need to edit and monitor at the same time then you should make a feature request.

Please make this feature request to a higher power than the author of N++ (because I don’t really see how both things – editing and an external app making changes – can reasonably be accomplished).

Modified this file in different app

Are you doing this while Notepad++ remains the main foreground app that has focus?

If so, then enable Notepad++'s monitoring. It’s the eye icon on Notepad++'s toolbar or it is the last/bottom option in Notepad++ View menu.

Normally when you switch to another app and then back to Notepad++ then it checks the file for changes by other apps on the spot. That’s why I asked Are you doing this while Notepad++ remains the main foreground app that has focus?. If so, Notepad++'s monitoring thing should work well for you.

Notepad++'s monitoring thing also disables the file-changed pop-ups for that file. A downside of monitoring is that it also puts the file in read-only mode from Notepad++'s perspective. You can’t edit a file using Notepad++ that you are monitoring via that same instance of Notepad++. If you have a need to edit and monitor at the same time then you should make a feature request.

For me, in 8.6.7, the step-by-step doesn’t work to show a problem.

After step 3, if I return input focus to N++ where the active tab is the one with the externally-modified file, I get the popup BEFORE I even have the opportunity to execute a Ctrl+r.

The same happens if the active tab when returning input focus to N++ is NOT the one with the externally-modified file; if I switch to that file, I again get the popup BEFORE I even have the opportunity to execute a Ctrl+r.

1. Editing text file
2. Saved
3. Modified this file in different app
4. Reload ( Ctrl + R )
   • content updated in editor
   • Pop-Up with unnecessary question about “reload” useless as the decision will not change anything.

Content already updated before Pop-Up.

Please improve it, and
add more sensitive monitoring of modified file when single tab/file opened.