jEdit

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

This article is about the text editor jEdit. For the Japanese text editor, see Jedit X.

For syntax highlighting of wikitext in jEdit, see Wikipedia:Text editor support.

jEdit

Screenshot jEdit 4.3 showing Java macro.]
Design by	Slava Pestov
Developed by	jEdit project
Initial release	1998
Latest release	4.2final / 2004-08-28
Preview release	4.3pre14 / 2008-04-30
OS	Java-supporting ^[1]
Available in	English only
Genre	Text editor
License	GNU General Public License
Website	http://www.jedit.org

jEdit is a text editor for programmers, available under the GNU General Public License.

1 Compatibility
2 Development
3 Features
- 3.1 Plug-ins
4 Critical reception
5 See also
6 References
7 External links

[edit] Compatibility

jEdit is written in Java and runs on Mac OS X, OS/2, Unix, VMS, and Windows.

[edit] Development

jEdit development was started in 1998.

The founding author was Slava Pestov, who has since left the project, handing development to the free software community.

[edit] Features

jEdit includes Syntax highlighting that provides native support for over 130 file formats. Support for additional formats can be added manually using XML files. It supports UTF-8 and many other encodings.

The application is highly customizable and can be extended with macros written in BeanShell, Jython, JavaScript and some other scripting languages.

[edit] Plug-ins

There are over 150 available jEdit plug-ins for many different application areas.

Plug-ins are used to customize the application for individual use and can make it into an advanced XML/HTML editor, or an integrated development environment (IDE), with compiler, code completion, context-sensitive help, debugging, visual differentiation and language-specific tools.

The plug-ins are downloaded via an integrated plug-in manager which finds and installs them and their associated updates automatically. ^[2]

Some available plug-ins include:

Spell checker using Aspell
Text auto-complete
Accents plugin that converts character abbreviations for accented characters as they are typed.
XML plugin that is used for editing XML, HTML, JavaScript and CSS files. In the case of XML, the plug-in does validation. For XML, HTML and CSS, it uses auto-completion popups for elements, attributes and entities.^[3]

[edit] Critical reception

In general jEdit has received positive reviews from software writers.

Rob Griffiths wrote in April 2002 for MAC OS X HINTS saying he was "very impressed" and naming it "pick of the week". He cited its file memory upon reopening, its ability to notice if an open file was changed on disk by another program, syntax coloring, including that users can create their own colour schemes, split windows feature, show line number feature, convertible tabs to soft-tabs and view sidebars. He also praised its customization possibilities using the extensive preferences panel and the "on the fly" search engine, which searches while typing.^[4]

Griffiths noted that the application has a few drawbacks, such as that it is "a bit slow at scrolling a line at a time" and that because it is a Java application it doesn't have the full Aqua interface.^[4]

Scott Beatty reviewing jEdit on SitePoint particularly noted the application's folding feature along with its search and replace and PHP syntax highlighting capabilities. He recommended the use of the PHPParser plug-in. The PHPParser is a PHP parser that checks for PHP syntax errors whenever a PHP code file is loaded or saved. He noted that downloading jEdit is simple, but that getting and installing the plug-ins to customize it for individual use can be a complex process: "Beware that a full setup requires a series of downloads, and that this process can take time."^[5]