MagicSync

MagicSync makes Connect more valuable by giving you a view into what files have changed between environments. MagicSync makes it easier to push or pull only the files that have had changes to them, speeding up the process.

MagicSync Benefits

The core benefit of using MagicSync is that only files that have changed will be displayed when deploying updates or pulling down changes. The MagicSync Viewer provides a clear view of what files are different, along with easy controls for ignoring certain files during the Connect process.

In addition to MagicSync allowing you to control exactly what is deployed, using Connect does more for your deployment process:

Using MagicSync

When using MagicSync to push or pull a site, there are three main steps that Local will do before showing the Viewer.

note

Local only compares modification times of files within the file list and not the actual contents of those files. If you find yourself needing to manage and merge changes more granularly than at the file level, you might consider using a dedicated version control tool like Git.

All modified files option

The “all modified files” option can be thought of as a “force overwrite” of the target site by the source site. This is regardless of the modification times that Local finds when comparing the file list of the server and the local site.

So for example, if I’m pushing a local site up to Flywheel’s servers, Local will compare the two file lists, one for the local site and one for the server. It will then generate instructions to:

Notice in this screenshot, the readme.txt file is older on the Local site, but because the “All modified files” option is selected, it is still going to overwrite the remote site.

MagicSync all modified files.

If we compare the above image with the “only newer files” option, we see that the file that is older on the Local site, does not show up as available to be pushed:

MagicSync for only newer files.