Refresh Pilot Docs

Advanced monitoring

A handful of switches in the Monitor tab fine-tune how the page is scanned: what text to read, when to read it, and how often to repeat an alert.

Match HTML source Case sensitive Real-time detection

The advanced switches — all off by default, each one changes how the scan behaves.

Match HTML source PRO

Default: off. Normally the monitor reads what a human can see — the visible text. Turn this on and it scans the page's raw HTML code instead. That lets you catch things that are in the code but not on screen, like a hidden status attribute or an embedded product code.

⚠️ Raw HTML changes far more often than visible text (scripts, tracking ids, timestamps). Combined with Any change mode it can fire constantly — keep it off unless you know the text you need is only in the source.

Case sensitive FREE

Default: off. Off means in stock matches "In Stock", "IN STOCK" — and accents are ignored too, so cafe matches "café". Turn it on when the exact letter case matters, for example a code like OK that must not match the word "ok".

Real-time detection PRO

Default: off. Normally the monitor checks the page after each refresh. But many modern pages update themselves without any reload — live blogs, stock tickers, queue pages. Real-time detection covers those: it uses the browser's built-in change reporter (called a MutationObserver), which tells Refresh Pilot the instant the page rewrites part of itself.

Two built-in brakes keep it calm:

  • it waits 1.5 seconds after the last change before scanning, so a burst of tiny updates counts as one;
  • it reports at most once every 20 seconds, matching the monitor's normal alert throttle.
liveblog.example.com

Update 14:02 — tickets available at the box office

🔔Keyword found: "tickets available"

With real-time detection, a page that updates itself — no reload, no spinner — still triggers the alert.

Skip repeated keyword FREE

Default: off. When on, each keyword alerts only once per page session — the first time it's seen — instead of every 20 seconds for as long as it stays on the page. Turn it on when your keyword will remain visible after it appears (a price, a status line) and one heads-up is all you need.

Wait for content to load FREE

A stepper from 0 to 120 seconds, default 0. Some pages show a spinner first and fill in the real content a few seconds later; if the monitor scans too early it sees the spinner, not the stock status. Set this to how long the page needs — the scan then waits that many seconds after every load. At 0 the monitor still uses a small built-in delay of about 0.8 seconds, which is enough for most pages.

Highlighting & scroll into view

When a keyword matches visible text, Refresh Pilot highlights it in yellow (using the browser's Custom Highlight API where supported) and smoothly scrolls the first match into view — once per page load. So when you hear the alert and switch to the tab, the thing you were waiting for is already on screen and marked.

💡 Next: the scan found something — now make some noise. Notifications & sounds covers everything that happens on a match.