Take the name of a file that is not there yet

[rodgco]

Fixes #6. The analysis and the shape of this fix are @Vyrnexis's, from the issue.

Backend::open only reads. A path with nothing behind it fails the ReadOnly open, reports "Could not open", and returns before setFileUrl, so the document ends up with no name at all — and Backend::save falls back to saveAsDialog(). Starting a file the way every editor is asked to start one, omawrite new_document.md, therefore met the portal's Save As dialog asking for a name that had already been given on the command line.

open now claims the URL for a blank document when the path is not there yet, so the first save lands where the writer said it should. A path that exists but cannot be read — a directory, a file without read permission — is still an error, and still leaves the document it could not replace alone.

The status line says New file new_document.md, and nothing is written until the writer saves.

Test

startsANewFileFromAPathThatIsNotThereYet drives the real Main.qml document:

• opening a path that is not there names the document, leaves it blank and unmodified, and writes nothing to disk;
• typing and saving lands on that path with no Save As dialog requested (QSignalSpy on saveDialogRequested stays at 0);
• a file that is there still opens and reads;
• a path that cannot be read still reports Could not open, keeping the previous document and its URL.

The test fails on master (fileUrl comes back invalid) and passes with the fix. Full suite in build-tests: 13 passed, 0 failed.

🤖 Generated with Claude Code

https://claude.ai/code/session_01TyQRJCyR76uk7XaNAB8jMC

[omarchybot]

Reviewed against master and ran the suite on a disposable VM: 13 passed, 0 failed, before and after the commit below.

Pushed 770f714 to this branch. The early return took any absent path, including one under a directory that is not there, or one the writer cannot write into — and that moves the failure from the open to the first save, where there is no longer a Save As fallback to land in. omawrite ~/notes/2026/draft.md with no 2026/ directory opens a document titled draft.md, and Ctrl+S answers with Could not save draft.md. in the footer and no dialog, because the URL is now valid enough to skip saveAsDialog(). A trailing-slash path is the same case and shows as Untitled.md, since fileName() is empty for it. The commit claims the name only where the file could actually be created, leaves everything else on master's Could not open, and adds one assertion to your test — which fails without the guard.

Two things I did not change, for the maintainer to decide:

• Nothing watches the path between open and the first save: watchCurrentFile() can only watch a file that already exists, and no directory is watched. If another process creates that file in the meantime — a git pull, a sync client — saveTo() replaces it via QSaveFile::commit() with no external-change dialog, because m_hasKnownFileContents is false and no watcher event was ever possible. On master that case went through the Save As dialog, which asks before overwriting. Narrow, but it is a guard this removes rather than one that was never there.
• reloadFromDisk() calls open(m_fileUrl), so if the file vanishes between the "File changed" dialog opening and the Reload click, Reload now blanks the document and clears recovery instead of reporting Could not open and leaving it alone. The dialog disables Reload when it already knows the file was deleted, so only that race reaches it.

Worth knowing before merge: #9 rewrites the same function. It routes every write of m_lastKnownFileContents/m_hasKnownFileContents through a new setKnownFileContents() that also maintains m_lastKnownFileText, the baseline its editorTextChanged compares against to clear the modified flag. This block sets those two members by hand and never touches m_lastKnownFileText, so whichever lands second, the new-file path has to call setKnownFileContents(QByteArray(), false). Left as is: open an existing file, then open a name that is not there, and the baseline stays the old file's text — typing exactly that text into the blank document clears modified, deletes the recovery snapshot, and closing the window never asks.