Xojo 2026r3 brings some improvements to project and project item reloading, which make it easier to use Xojo with version control systems and AI coding agents.
Project Reloading
In prior versions of Xojo you could reload a project, after it had been modified, by using File -> Revert to Saved. This feature essentially closes and re-opens the entire project and it works with all project formats: Binary, XML and Text.
With 2026r3, this feature remains with a couple small tweaks. First, you can now reload the project without having to first modify it. An example when this might be useful is if you have just updated your Git client with the latest changes from your team and want to quickly reload the entire project.
This feature has also been renamed from “Revert to Saved” to “Reload Project”.
Project Item Reloading
Reloading the entire project can be handy, but is also somewhat overkill for text projects that save each project item as a separate file. If just a single file on disk was changed, then you may not want to reload the entire project, which could cause you to lose IDE changes, lose your place in the Navigator or just take too long.
You can now use File -> Reload Item to reload the selected item in the Navigator. Note that “Item” in the menu is replaced with the name of the selected item. This feature reloads the selected item and keeps it selected.
This feature is destructive, so if you have made changes to the project item in the IDE, they will be lost as the item is completely replaced by the version on the disk.
It is a quick way to reload an item that has been changed by a version control update or an AI coding agent. Reloading is also a great way to fix a borked edit, rather than doing multiple Undos.
This feature only works with Text projects.
Reload Changed Files
Finally, you may have multiple files you want to reload but don’t know exactly which ones they are. This sort of thing can happen with a version control update or an AI coding agent. Rather than force you to reload the entire project, you can now use File -> Reload Changed Files to reload the files on disk that are different than what is in the IDE.
This feature is destructive, so if you have made changes to the project items in the IDE, they will be lost as the item is completely replaced by the version on the disk.
This feature only works with Text projects.
IDE Scripting
The above features now also have equivalent IDE Scripting commands. They are:
- ReloadProject()
- ReloadProjectItem(itemPath As String) As Boolean
- ReloadChangedFiles()
Paul learned to program in BASIC at age 13 and has programmed in more languages than he remembers, with Xojo being an obvious favorite. When not working on Xojo, you can find him talking about retrocomputing at Goto 10 and on Mastodon @lefebvre@hachyderm.io.