FileWatcher browser extension

Description

FileWatcher is a browser extension for web developers that automatically reloads browser tabs when one of the watched local source files changes.
If you're a web developer, I'm sure you'll repeat the sequence CTRL+S / ALT+TAB / F5 a lot of times in a day; save / switch to browser / reload is one of the most boring "manual batch" that a web developer does during their work day.
We could save a lot of time (and key presses) if the browser could automatically reload the webpage when needed.

FileWatcher is open source software, licensed under GPLv3.
Source code is available here: http://github.com/coolsoft-ita/filewatcher

FileWatcher is splitted in two components:

• browser extension
  A webextension that installs as usual through your browser Addons repository.
  Once installed (and activated) you'll see its icon on your browser toolbar.
• native application
  WebExtensions have limited access to local machine; that's why it needs a lightweight and efficient native application that runs on your OS (when needed) and detects filesystem changes.
  It uses efficient OS calls (no polling!) and notifies change events back to the browser extension.
  Being a native application it has to be installed manually on your operating system.

Installation

1. Install WebExtension for your browser by following one of these links:
   Firefox: https://addons.mozilla.org/firefox/addon/filewatcher/
   Chrome: ... not yet available, sorry...
2. Download the native application for your OS from the links at the bottom of this page.
   Once downloaded, run it and follow instructions.
   NOTE: you don't need administrative privileges to install and run it.
3. Open FileWatcher WebExtension settings page in your browser to check if the two components (WebExtension and Native App) are correctly installed and can communicate each other.

You're now ready to use FileWatcher and create your first rule!

Uninstallation

Uninstallation steps:

1. Remove the WebExtension through your browser Extensions manager dialog.
2. Remove the native application using the usual operating system uninstall procedures (on Windows use the "Installed applications" control panel app).

Configuration

Reload events are triggered by one or more rules; each rule defines a base directory to watch for changes and which tabs will be reloaded when a change is detected.

Open the extension options page by clicking its toolbar icon, then the Settings button.
Now you'll see the configured rules list; click the + button to create a new one and fill the required fields.

Once you've finished, click Apply configuration to save rules and immediately activate them.

Rules

To configure FileWatcher automatic reload you need to define a list of rules; each rule will detect changes on a configured set of files and reload the related tab pages.

The following is a sample rule configuration:

With the sample rule_1 above all opened browser tabs whose URL satisfies the URL pattern will automatically reload when a file in folder C:\Sources\symfony\myproject (and subfolders) changes.
To trigger a reload, the relative filename of changed file must also satisfy the Include pattern regular expression (required) and not satisfy the Exclude pattern regular expression (optional).
This allows to refine triggers and avoid unneeded reloads (i.e. to exclude cache folders).

Meaning of rule properties:

NOTE: on Linux the local paths and regex patterns must use the / directory separator instead of \.

Links

Firefox add-on page: https://addons.mozilla.org/firefox/addon/filewatcher/

Source code: https://github.com/coolsoft-ita/filewatcher

Report a bug: https://github.com/coolsoft-ita/filewatcher/issues