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Beta Settings sync

Settings sync keeps four kinds of personal data the same on every computer you use Editora on. The data travels through a Git repository you own; there is no Editora account and no Editora server. It is off by default.

What is synced

Each of the four has its own checkbox under What to sync, so you can leave one out.

Nothing else is synced. Preferences (settings.json), keymaps and key rebinds, macros, themes, plugins, and session state stay on the computer they were made on.

Setting it up

You need git installed and a Git repository that is either empty or already used for sync by another of your computers. Use a private repository: snippets and templates can contain private text.

1. Open Settings → Sync, or run Settings Sync: Set Up… (sync.setup).
2. Paste the repository’s URL into Repository, for example git@github.com:you/editora-sync.git, and check the Branch. When the GitHub CLI is installed and signed in, Create on GitHub… asks for a name, creates a private repository, and fills the URL in.
3. Click Connect.

Connect looks at the repository before anything changes. If it already holds data, a dialog states how many entries would arrive on this computer, how many this computer would send, and how many differ on both. Nothing is removed on either side by connecting.

Repeat the same steps on each other computer, with the same URL. Disconnect stops syncing on this computer and leaves the repository and your local files as they are.

When it syncs

With Sync automatically on, Editora syncs:

• a few seconds after startup,
• about half a minute after you change a snippet, an abbreviation, a template, or the dictionary, and
• at the interval set on the page (15 minutes by default), while an Editora window has the focus.

Settings Sync: Sync Now (sync.now) and the Sync Now button run one on demand. A file you edit by hand in the config folder is picked up by the next timed sync.

The Status row shows when the last sync ran and what it did, for example “3 received, 1 sent”. Changes that arrive are applied to every open window without a restart.

How changes merge

Changes merge entry by entry, not file by file: one snippet, one abbreviation, one dictionary word. Two computers that each added a snippet to the same language both end up with both. A template is merged as a whole file.

When the same entry was changed on two computers, the computer that syncs keeps its own version. The other version is not lost: it stays in the repository’s Git history. The status row names the entries this happened to.

A file that cannot be read on either side, or that was written by a newer Editora, is left alone on both sides and named in the status row.

A sync that would remove more than half of a category that holds ten or more entries stops and asks first: the Sync page shows Sync Anyway. This keeps a damaged file on one computer from emptying the others.

Backups

Before a sync replaces or deletes a file in your config folder, it copies that file to sync/backups/<timestamp>/ in the config folder. The last ten sets are kept. Open Sync Folder on the Sync page opens the folder.

Credentials and failures

Editora signs in to the repository with your own Git credentials or SSH key, the same ones git uses in a terminal, and stores none of its own.

An automatic sync never asks for a password or a passphrase and never opens a dialog. If it fails, the reason appears once in the status bar and a Sync ⚠ segment stays there until a sync succeeds; clicking it opens Settings → Sync. A sync you start yourself with Sync Now may use your Git credential helper.

If a sync cannot reach the repository, nothing changes locally and the next sync tries again. A sync interrupted part-way is repeated in full by the next one.

When two Editora processes share one config folder (see --new-instance), only the first one syncs.

Commands

Related

• Snippets & templates and Configuration describe the files that are synced.
• Export Configuration… makes a one-off archive of the whole config folder; see Export and reset.