Review: jEdit programming text editor
Apr 29, '02 12:28:12AM
Contributed by: robg
In December of 2000, I published a hint about jEdit, a multi (programming) language text editing application. It had been a long time since I used it, as I haven't done any intensive PHP coding in about that amount of time.
This weekend, I began to convert macosxhints and its customized PHP code to run on the latest version of Geeklog (the "engine" behind the site). I downloaded the newest version of jEdit from the project's home page, and was very impressed with what I saw. Enough so that I made jEdit the pick of the week for this week.
Read the rest of the article for a mini-review of jEdit...
My project involved working on multitudes of separate PHP and HTML files, and jEdit made the task somewhat easier (although it was still quite a challenge!). There are a number of features that I, as a "non-programmer" programmer, found quite useful:
- jEdit remembers all the files you had open when you quit, and will open this same selection when you launch the program again, saving quite a bit of time.
- File markers are visually different for each modified but not saved file. jEdit also has the ability to notice if an open file is changed on disk by another program and alert you if this happens.
- Syntax coloring is provided for more languages than I can name, and you can create your own schemes if you don't like the provided version.
- You can split windows, show line numbers, convert tabs to soft-tabs (spaces), and view sidebars which show the extent of loops when you click on the row containing the end-loop character.
- Full customization possibilities through the extensive preferences panel.
- An "on the fly" search engine, which searches as you type. This search box also has a "hypersearch" mode, which presents a window listing all line numbers on which the search string was found; a double-click jumps to that particular line in the code.
- Using a collection of 50+ provided lug-ins, you can easily extend jEdit with added functionality. I'm especially fond of Buffer Tabs (adds tabs similar to Excel or Mozilla) and the buffer list (a floating window showing open and recent files).
The downsides? From my seat, about the only thing I noticed is that it's a bit slow at scrolling a line at a time. jEdit is also a Java application, so it doesn't have the full Aqua interface. I know there are those who swear by BBedit, and I do use the Lite version occasionally, but for my semi-occasional programming needs, jEdit more than fits the bill. Best of all, jEdit is free, and the newest version has a simple double-click installation process.
On a related note, I made great progress with the Geeklog conversion project that prompted me to re-examine jEdit. The macosxhints site is now (on my local OS X box) at about the 95% stage in matching the current site's look and custom PHP features. Sometime over the next couple of weeks, we'll be upgrading the main site to Geeklog 1.35 as I get the last five percent done, and a couple of final bugs are squashed in Geeklog.
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Mac OS X Hints
http://hints.macworld.com/article.php?story=20020429002812925