The modal 'Warning" window that displays the warning message:
"File "C:\web\foobar.php" is externally modified. Reload?"
when a file has been externally modified sometimes gets stuck behind the IDE window, without focus, forcing a shutdown of the IDE in order to continue.

This seems to happen (all too) repeatably in the following sequence:

Open 2 files in PHPed
Set a breakpoint in file1
Display file2 in PHPed
Go to IE browser, display file2 in browser (see that you messed up)
Edit file2 in external editor and save
Run debugger from IE toolbar

PHPed displays the break point in file1, but the "file ... is externally modified" warning window that displayed when you edited file2 externally is no longer on top, is modal, and can't be accessed because it no longer has the focus. PHPed is effectively dead at this point and has to be shutdown by killing the task.

This has bitten me several times today because I had a .yml configuration file open in both PHPed and a text editor, forgot that I had the file open in PHPed because I had about 30 files open, fixed the configuration problem in the external file and then immediately ran the debugger from IE without going back to PHPed first. DOH!

It's a little thing, I luckily didn't lose any code, and I promise to be more careful in the future, but I thought I'd report it anyway.

v4.5 Build 4513

You can press Ctrl-TAB to switch to another application, then Ctrl-TAB to return back and it will show the dialog shown behind the main window. Yet it's a tricky workaround.

Thanks for the suggestion, but no, that doesn't work because there are multiple files open and stopping on the breakpoint has moved the focus to the main window of PHPed. So Ctrl-TAB just rotates between the open-file tabs. Jumping to another application using Alt-TAB and jumping back just brings me back to the main screen again because it still has the focus.

I guess in my experience once a modal dialog loses the focus and is hidden behind the main window of the app, there's just no way to get back to it unless the application is smart enough to remember that a modal is still open, and restore the focus to it if it's lost the focus. I should point out that both IE and PHPed are maximized, just in case it matters.