Hex Movie: Hot Tracking File Changes

A rather typical usage scenario for a hex editor is running a program in a debugger while tracking the changes in the output file on each step. However you might be surprised to see that the file in the hex editor window remains the same, even if you know for sure it has been changed. The reason is obvious: the editor does not know the file has been modified, and you have to reload the file in order to see the changes. It is true for any hex editor, that is, any except FlexHEX.

With FlexHEX you don't need to reload the same file again and again - it detects any change made to the file and immediately updates the edit window. This feature is called hot tracking, and is turned on automatically for any file opened in the read-only mode.

Hot-tracking is not required if the file is open for reading and writing because FlexHEX won't allow other applications to modify it.

Hex Movie

Download a simple example and see why we call it a movie. It does look this way.

1. Download TrackTest.exe and run it. This program will create a file TrackTest.dat in the root directory of the C: drive.
2. Open C:\TrackTest.dat in FlexHEX in the read-only mode.
3. Press the TrackTest's Start button.
4. Enjoy!

Download TrackTest.exe.
Download VC++ TrackTest sources.