First of all, this is a very old question that has been answered on this list
many times.
On Feb 7, 2013, at 17:11, Dave Sands wrote:
> Hi
>
> I've been using this app for a while. Currently on the latest version 1.4.1
>
> I'm kind of puzzled by the slightly nondeterministic behaviour of skim.
> Perhaps I'm doing it wrong. Maybe someone can enlighten me.
>
> One of the main reasons to install skim was to have automatic updates for pdf
> files that have changed. I'm usually talking about latex generated pdfs where
> the change is generated from a compilation within aquamacs, or by running a
> make file from a terminal. I am guessing that latex+skim is common enough
> than most of you will know what I'm talking about.
>
> Here are the oddities:
> Firstly, when skim detects a change in an open file for the first time in
> the current session, it always prompts:
> "The PDF file has changed on disk. Do you want to reload this document now?
> Choosing Auto will reload this file automatically for future changes." I
> don't get why it just doesn't do auto every time, or at least why it always
> asks for every file and every session of skim. How can I tell it to always to
> auto? For all files. Always. I tried a few things but with no success.
>
So you can be warned about it. The fact is that whether it may be a good idea
to update can depend on the file. For instance, it does not work well when the
file has notes. So we won't offer a way to always automatically reload. Excep
in a hidden preference (as explained on the wiki).
> Secondly, skim often seems to miss that the file has been updated. But the
> lack of a reload or refresh button or menu item suggests that this is not
> supposed to happen. I've experienced this often and with changes induced
> from both aquamacs and from the terminal. I figure I must be configuring it
> incorrectly or simply using it in the wrong way.
>
Unfortunately it auto updating cannot be done reliably in all cases. This is
because it partially depends on what the system supplied code does, and we
cannot know how that works. So whenever we know that we cannot be sure, we
won't update. When we figure out that the file is changed, the Revert action
will be active.
> A related but more minor issue concerns using latex make files or scripts.
> When a pdf file is generated multiple times in short succession it seems that
> skim often sees an incomplete copy and complains about a corrupt pdf file. It
> would make a lot of sense for skim to try again in the case of a suspected
> corrupt pdf.
>
> / D
We try to handle this as good as we can. But we cannot do this perfectly,
because of the (horrible) way latex updates files. We can only guess as best as
we can when latex is finished. The best way is to force an update after latex
is finished, that is the *only* safe and reliable way to do it.
Sorry, we do what we cannot, and we cannot do more. In fact, we here actually
think the auto-updating should never have been implemented to begin with,
precisely because these problems are there and they are inevitable.
You must read the Wiki on this.
Christiaan
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