Whatever happened to jEdit

Question

I'm not sure if many people know about this text-editor?

jEdit was kinda big in 2004, but now, Notepad++ seems to have taken the lead(on Windows) Many of the plugins haven't been updated since 2003 and the overal layout and usage is confusing...

I'm sure jEdit has many nifty features, but I'll be damned if I can find out where to find them and how to use them. Reading that manual is a fulltime job on it's own.

Answer 1

I've been using jEdit for a few years now, mainly on windows, but also on Ubuntu. I use it for: SQL, awk, batch files, html, xml, javascript... Just about everything except .NET stuff (for which I use Visual Studio).
I love it.

summary

I use jEdit because it has the right balance for me of ease of setting up vs. features and customisability. For me, no other editor strikes quite as good a balance.

cons

• It can be a bit hard to make it do the things you want.

pros

• I love the plugins
• Being able to define my own syntax highlighting etc. is just what I want from a text editor.
• The manual is very good and quite readable. I strongly suggest reading it through to get an idea of what jEdit can do for you. (In fact, I suggest this for any software you use)
• It's cross-platform. I used it just on windows for a long time, but now I also use Ubuntu, and it works there: I can even copy the configuration files over from my windows machine, and everything works. Nice.

other editors

In the past I did take a look at Notepad++, but that was a while ago, and it didn't have a nice way to define your own syntax highlighting, which is important for me. I also paid for Textmate and UltraEdit at different times (both very good), but in the end, jEdit comes out on top for me.
I also used Eclipse for a year or so. It's fantastic, and it'll do anything you want, but you have to be really into Eclipse to get the most out of it.

Answer 2

I've occasionally wondered about the same thing (what happened to jEdit - though I'm not sure if that was your main question).

Apparently, the main developer, Slava Pestov, left the project in 2006 (to focus on Factor, and his studies), and the jEdit development has never really picked up again after that. Which is a shame. :/ (I haven't actually followed closely, but I guess it's telling that there has not been a major release of jEdit in the last 4 and half years.)

Now, while googling around, I found some info written by Slava himself. It seems at that time he not only gave up jEdit, but developing in Java altogether, after becoming "increasingly frustrated" with the language.

Answer 3

jEdit is by far, my prefered editor since 2010. It has a unique set of features that I didn't found in any other:

Multi OS: Win, Linux, Mac.

Portable: Just copy a folder and it is ready to use. All settings are kept in .XML and .properties files inside jEdit subfolder. This is crucial if you don't have admin rights on your enterprise workstation.

Search-Replace: The most enhanced I've seen in a text editor: Full Regex specification with Bean Shell scripting capabilities for back references. For instance: Let's say you want to apply an increment on every number found in your text (replace 1 by 2, 10 by 11 and so on). Just search for regex "(\d+)" and replace by a Java expression "Integer.parseInt(_1) + 1". It's just a simple example, but enough to show how powerful it is.

Database: Just select your SQL statement, press a button and get the resultset from MySQL, MsSql, Oracle, Teradata and any other Jdbc compatible RDBMS. Export results to csv. Works like a multi-database command line tool. Browse and navigate on your database schema. (SQL plugin).

Customization: Here is where jEdit shines. There are tons of features. The highlight is the ability to use any java API to expand it! Access them from your Beanshell scripting macros. Example: I needed a function that decode selected text from/to mime64. No problem! I Just downloaded a library from commons.apache.org and accessed it from a jEdit macro. It's just unbeliveable how expandable jEdit can be with this feature.

Highlight: Select a word or phrase and it is highlighted right away in the entire text. The mini-map of ocurrences is shown in the scrollbar. It allows quickly find, for example, a respective css style in separated file just using the mouse. No need for Ctrl+F or type anything. It works even on ordinary txt files. (Highlight Plugin)

Plugins: FTP, XML, Text Diff, Themes, Text Tabs, Highlighter, character map, Mail, Whitespaces, Abbrevs, Minimap...there are hundreds of them.

There are dozens of other nice features that I won't describe here in order to keep this answer not too long. The complete article can be found here and the mime64 example here.

At first glance, jEdit is just another text editor. The full capabilities come into light when you start playing with it's endless customization/expansion power. My initial reluctance of accepting a java-written text editor disappeared when I realize that only a java text-editor could be so extensible. Its initial drawback turned into it's main advantage.

Answer 4

I've been using jEdit since 2003ish. I use it on my Ubuntu 8.04 box at home, however it does have a few bugs: sometimes when you click on a button which opens a dialog, such as "Open File", the dialog will be completely blank.

This could be a Java thing, but it seems a strange issue.

Other than that, I'm quite happy with jEdit - it's the best general editor I've found (so far) for Linux (ducks as hordes of Vi and Emacs users light up their flame cannons)

I like the XML Editor plugin: auto-completion when you close XML (including HTML) tags, plus if you specify a DOCTYPE it gives you auto completion.

There is also a handy plugin for visually viewing diffs between two files.

Answer 5

At the risk of performing necromancy:

1. Because of the way it's been released the last decade or so, major Linux distributions usually lag quite far behind the latest stable version. The good news is that there are repositories to install and upgrade it automatically on Ubuntu and more.
2. For a couple years I shared configuration files between Windows, FreeBSD and Linux without problems. That's more than I can say about any other application I've ever used.
3. The only issue I've heard about is that it used to be slow back in the dawn of time. Now it's really fast.
4. Encodings and line endings are handled more seamlessly than any other editor except IntelliJ IDEA.
5. Vertical editing. Just hold down Ctrl and drag to create a rectangular (or even a zero-width vertical) selection.
6. Better search and replace than any other editor ever except IntelliJ IDEA. I just started writing a list, but it has to be seen to be believed. Just Ctrl-f and see for yourself.

Answer 6

I have been using jEdit for the last five years. And I agree with Mr. Mahan's comment above, jEdit has reached the "just works stage" and does not really need anymore development.

I mainly use it for PHP web development and have tried everything from commercial IDEs (DreamWeaver) to php designer, NetBeans, Eclipse, Apanta and Notepad++. And nothing comes close for customization possibilities. If the plugin does not exist, chances you can whip something together with a BeanShell Macro (assuming you want to dig into Java).

On Windows I use Notepad++ as well, but mainly as a Notepad replacement (I even renamed the notepad.exe)

At the end of the day it comes down to taste. What is important to you and what will make you more productive. A distracting GUI and fluffy features can take you away from what you should be focusing on.

And to boot I have converted a few developers to jEdit along the way.

Answer 7

After many years, jEdit remains my favorite free validating XML editor. I love the seamless combination of XML validation with plain-text editing features such as regex search-and-replace across multiple files.

Answer 8

I had to use during my vocational education for XML and XSLT. It had a lot of bugs and didn't work always. I couldn't get to like it, but if I had to test some XSLT I'd give it another shot. I found Notepad++ and I am more than happy with it for what I need.

To your question: Did you take a look at jEdit's plugin list? There are some plugins released 2008 and the latest version was released on 8th August 2008.

Answer 9

Myeah, I just installed the 4.3pre15(latest) and it does look a bit better.

Super feature is the automatic XML DTD creation you can get from one of the plugins.

Now THAT is awsome, especially for big files

Answer 10

I have used jEdit for a number of years, both on PC and Mac (a bit funky on the Mac).

Currently I use it primarily as a folding editor for a number of on-going documentation notes. I have use the folding at the text indent levels - an easy way to collapse and expand file sections, without any work to set up each section.

The feature I really like are the command shortcut alternatives you can set up, the tool bar icon control, and the the abbreviation expansions. The Plugins I especially favor are the BufferTabs to display rows of file/buffer names, and the Whitespace and TextTools.

I recently loaded the GroovyScriptEngine, in part because of the syntax coloring and control for groovy. I set up 2 seperate jEdit versions, in part to maintain seperate history lists, as I update a few dozen files repeatedly.

Answer 11

I loved Notepad++ on windows, but when I made the switch to Mac I was left behind. Since then I have been in tune with utilities that work across multiple platforms so that is why I switched to JEdit over 2 years ago and I have been loving it ever since. It works flawlessly on my Mac, never crashes, is fast, and has many many add-ons. It is based on Java so it works on many different platforms. I think Jedit is equal to or better than Notepad++

My favorite plug-in is the FTP module. I can open, edit and save files on my FTP server just as easily as if they were local.