File ownership

Ethersync synchronizes edits immediately to each peer, and the receiving daemon will write changes to disk immediately. This means that the concept of "saving a file" does not exist anymore when using Ethersync - everything is auto-saved.

Sometimes the peer has the file already open in an editor, sometimes not. We are using a concept called "ownership" to define whether changes by external tools to the file are taken into account. Either the daemon or the editor can have it.

Daemon has ownership

The daemon has ownership of a file if it is not open in an editor on that computer. In this case the daemon will pick up changes done by external tools.

Editor has ownership

By opening a file in an editor with Ethersync plugin, that editor takes "ownership" of the file – the daemon will not pick up external changes anymore. Instead, the editor's buffer content is seen as the "truth".