Can Eclipse refresh resources automatically?

Question

One of the things that really irks me about Eclipse is the way it deals with out-of-sync resources (files that have been edited outside of the IDE). In most IDEs I've used, only resources with editors open are considered out-of-sync. In Eclipse, all resources can go out of sync.

This means that whenever I perform a search, I get an obnoxious error dialog telling me that some files are out of sync, even if they have no open editors. As far as I can tell, there is no global refresh command, so I'm forced to actually read the project names (I have several projects) in the error dialog, and do a right-click + refresh for each of them.

I've checked the Refresh Automatically setting in Settings > General > Workspace, but this has no effect. Is there any way to get Eclipse to always just load non-active resources from disk?

Edit: Using Eclipse 3.4.2 with PyDev, if it matters.

Answer 1

I think if you click on the project node in the Project Explorer and press F5 or right click and select Refresh, all resources for that project will be refreshed. Also, if you CTRL+click on multiple projects, you should be able to refresh multiple projects at the same time.

A single click on a project, a CTRL+A to select everything, and an F5 should do exactly what you need - refresh everything.

I'll have to test this when I get the chance, but I believe this is how I overcame similar problems in the past.

Answer 2

There is a global refresh - have nothing (or everything) selected in the package explorer and press F5 (or right-click on empty space and select Refresh). Of course, this could take rather long if you have large projects.

Answer 3

Perhaps you should add a feature request on the eclipse site:

https://bugs.eclipse.org/bugs/

I think it would be a great idea to add a preference for automatically refreshing out of date resources.

Answer 4

Even if the solutions proposed by others perso are indeed correct, you have a "Refresh All" plugin for Eclipse. Simply add the Update page to your Eclipse list of update sites to install it in your IDE.