PSPad understands the problem very well!
In addition to the first solution proposed by Johan, the semaphor file should
contain a line with a username and date, e.g,
Jan, 2006-12-13 14:42
(and some standard indication of the time zone or use GMT for all) and this info
should be part of the warning:
(Jan) has opened the file filename.ext for editing on (date, time).
Perhaps the above message should appear in plain text in the semaphor file, for
the benefit of those using editors other than pspad.
You'll find that over half the time, the person who receives the warning is the
same person who opened the file before! and was "just looking" or didn't save
the edit.
Upon saving the edit, there needs to be some interaction with the user whether
to update the semaphor file ("I'm continuing to edit") or erase it ("I'm
finished editing"). Unless you want to use the semaphor file as a log file,
when you'd need to add something to say that you've finished editing, rather
than erase the file.
The semaphor file should not have the same extension as the file being edited!
Maybe
filename.ext.pspadsemaphor
(don't know if all ftp servers would support that).
Finally, this semaphor stuff should be optional and turned off by default.
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