Node:ECB-window synchronizing, Next:Stealthy background tasks, Previous:Back/forward navigation, Up:Usage of ECB

Synchronization of the ECB-windows

Per default ECB synchronizes automatically the contents of the ECB-windows/tree-buffers with the current active edit-window (rsp. the current buffer of the edit window):

• ECB-directories:

  This windows is synchronized to display the directory where the source-file which is displayed in the current active edit-window is located. If the source-path (i.e. an element of the option ecb-source-path) containing this directory is not expanded it will be auto. expanded according to the value of the option ecb-auto-expand-directory-tree (see ecb-directories).

• ECB-sources:

  The ECB-sources-buffer contains after synchronizing all the sources of the directory of the "current" source-file displayed in the edit-window. The entry of the "current" source-file is highlighted.

• ECB-methods:

  Contains after synchronizing all the tags of the buffer in the current selected edit-window, i.e. all methods, variables etc... depending on the major-mode.

• ECB-history:

  Highlights the entry of the buffer displayed in the current active edit-window if this buffer is a source-file.

This feature can be customized with the option ecb-window-sync:

If active then the synchronization takes place whenever a buffer changes in an edit window or if another edit-window with another buffer will be selected, if deactivated then never. But you can also set this option to a list of major-modes and then the sync. will only be done if the major-mode of the current buffer does NOT belong to this list.

But in every case the synchronization only takes place if the major-mode of the current-buffer in the current selected edit-window has a relation to files or directories. Examples for the former one are all programming-language-modes like c++-mode or java-mode, Info-mode too, an example for the latter one is dired-mode. For all major-modes related to non-file/directory-buffers like help-mode, customize-mode and others a synchronization will never be done!

It's recommended to exclude at least Info-mode because it makes no sense to synchronize the ECB-windows after calling the Info help. Per default also dired-mode is excluded but it can also making sense to synchronize the ECB-directories/sources windows with the current directory of the dired-buffer in the edit-window.

If you often need to toggle between autom. synchronization on and off then customizing the option ecb-window-sync is inefficient and therefore ECB offers the command ecb-toggle-window-sync.

Please note: With the command ecb-window-sync you can do a manual synchronization if the automatic one is switched off or if you just want to do this!