jEdit : Java Glossary

A UTF-8 text editor that also has a Java beautifier. The current version is 5.5.0 Last revised/verified: 2018-04-10. Its most appealing feature is that the macro language is Java. There are over 200 existing plug-ins. You can write bits of Java code to help edit your text and insert them in the editor to be evaluated with Bean Shell. It is open source and written in Java. It can do the syntax highlighting for 200 different computer languages/file types. You can create more by writing an XML (extensible Markup Language) file to define the highlighting.

To key accented letters, you need to use the Accents plug-in. Use the following sequences to get accented letters:

Tips

• Use utilities ⇒ global options ⇒ text area ⇒ single selection to bright yellow. This will make it much easier to pick out the result of a find.
• To make the type bigger or smaller click Utilities ⇒ Global Options ⇒ Text Area ⇒ Text Font.

Bugs

• jEdit tends to ignore the directory you specify when you do a file open, and try to open a non-existent file instead.
• You cannot enter an absolute filename into the file open dialog, e.g. J:\mindprod\jgloss\jedit.html. You have to navigate a leg at a time to the jgloss directory, then give the file name.
• jEdit keeps turning on hypersearch mode without being asked.
• jEdit keeps jumping into selection mode without being asked.
• The search for text often stops working for no apparent reason. It claims it cannot find any hits.

RFEs (Request For Enhancements)

• It is confusing having two dialog boxes to enter a filename. Simplify it to one.
• Let me enter a wildcard in the file open box to let me see a narrowed range of possible file choices.
• I can put file:///E:/mindprod/jgloss/jedit.html on the jEdit command line, but I cannot enter it into the file open dialog. I wish I could.
• It would be nice if the F3 search next button worked even when the search and replace dialog was visible.
• One of my most common errors is to click the save instead of the open button. Then I navigate to find the file, only to find out at the last second I am in save mode. I would like some clues to let me know sooner that I am in save mode, perhaps a background colour change, perhaps a different cursor.
• Let me assign half a dozen easily configurable icons that show as part of the file open dialog to jump directly to my favourite directories or files. To configure, go to that directory or file, and right click the icon you want in future to take you directly there.
• The HTML (Hypertext Markup Language) documents I work with contain a lot of included and generated text. Editing the included text is futile, since it does not modify the originals. It would be nice if included text could show with a different coloured background. It would be even nicer if edits to the included text modified the original. Alternatively, it would be nice if JEdit prevented me from wasting time editing included or generated text. I would need a way to configure a string or regex to mark the start/end of included/generated text.

Fonts

You can configure forts under Options ⇒ Appearance or Options ⇒ text area.

Gotchas

You must uninstall and reinstall JEdit any time you upgrade your Java JRE (Java Runtime Environment).