Sublime Forum

Sublime Text 3 ignores changes to settings file

#1

Hi,

when I edit the user settings file (Preferences.sublime-settings) it doesn’t have any effect. When I perform changes from the outside, like changing the theme via the menu, or the font-size with ctrl+scroll those changes are reflected in the settings file, but my further modifications don’t have any effect.

This is also true for automatically installing plugins via packagecontrol. I set up ST3 for syncing via Dropbox as it is described here: packagecontrol.io/docs/syncing

I was already using the dropbox sync between linux, OS X and Windows 10. Currently I have a fresh install of Windows 8.1 (instead of Windows 10) where it doesn’t work. I installed ST3 via chocolatey and after first time starting it prompted me to update to the newest version (3083). Reinstall didn’t work either, any ideas?

Thx

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#2

I thought it could be do to problems with the link, so I’ve just copy-pasted the settings into the correct folder, but still having the same problems. It also shouldn’t be due to some errors in the format, as if I only change the zoom level, I get a fresh JSON config with just the font size and if I just change the number there, nothing happens. On my OS X it works

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#3

This has been happening forever. I don’t know why.
See e.g.:


My Sublime Text hasn’t auto-reloaded settings in probably a couple years now.

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#4

This is still a problem. Too bad. Maybe pycharm is better after all?

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#5

Which OS are you using and which version of Sublime Text?

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#6

10.11.6 El Capitan Mac
3.2.2 Sublime

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#7

Could you use a utility such as fswatch to listen for file change notifications in the Packages/User directory of your Sublime Text install. This is usually located in ~/Library/Application Support/Sublime Text 3/. You should be seeing a file change event when saving the settings from Sublime Text.

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#8

I see the changes. I had located these Preference files in the same directory where my code is located, But it doesn’t seem to notice the files in the local directory, it only seems to access the ones in the ~Library* path. Is that the expected behavior?
Thanks for your help.
Rob

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#9

Settings files are only read from the Sublime Text data directory. Just to confirm, when you edit settings in Sublime Text with fswatch running it outputs something like ~/Library/Application Support/Sublime Text 3/Packages/User/preferences.sublime-settings but Sublime Text doesn’t apply the new settings?

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#10

it’s working better now, but there is this hierarchy of files. do settings in the language specific file (in tis case python) override settings in the general file. the documentation says they are consulted in a certain order but does not say if settings override one another.

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#11

Yes, settings can override each other; a way to think of it is that all of the places that settings can exist are consulted in the order laid out, and the last one to be checked that has a particular setting is what “wins” and that setting is used.

That’s why when you use Preferences > Settings from the menu, you’re not required to copy the whole of the default preferences from the left hand pane into your user preferences on the right; you only need to modify the settings that you want to change from the defaults. The same holds true for the other places settings can be set as well.

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