Submit Hint Search The Forums LinksStatsPollsHeadlinesRSS
14,000 hints and counting!


Click here to return to the 'I swear by jEdit' hint
The following comments are owned by whoever posted them. This site is not responsible for what they say.
I swear by jEdit
Authored by: labmonky on Apr 30, '02 11:31:20PM
I have been using jEdit since version 2.0 and I swear by it. That is a lot coming from someone who used to be married to Emacs. It has tons of advanced features for programmers and web developers that it indispensable and the plugins are great. I also love the fact that it is a Java application, that means I can carry it back and forth between multiple platforms and keep the same environment and settings no matter where I am.


I noticed you listed one of the downfalls to the application as Java. Though, in OS X Apple has a large Java framework enabling Java apps to exploit some of the advanced features of the OS. In jEdit some of these features are taken advantage of. You can make the application look and feel like a native Mac application with the Mac OS Adaptive option in the Appearance panel of the Global Options. jEdit also comes packaged as a Mac OS X APP bundle. One thing I noticed that was different in the 4.0 version of jEdit was the menus were not located in the menu bar as a native Mac application is. This is actually easily remedied by making a slight mod to the MRJApp.properties file in the jEdit.app bundle...


To do this "Show Package Contents" of jEdit.app. Open /Contents/Resources/MRJApp.properties.


Now add this line...


com.apple.macos.useScreenMenuBar=true


to the end of the file and restart jEdit with the Mac OS Adaptive appearance options and voila! We have a native (look and feel at least) Mac app. (Note: you could also do this with MRJApp Builder and create your own APP package, but why bother when most of the work is done for you.)

[ Reply to This | # ]

Screen menubar...
Authored by: robg on May 01, '02 09:12:18AM

I tried this modification, but my menu bar is still in the main window ... any thoughts on what might have gone wrong?

-rob.



[ Reply to This | # ]
Screen menubar...
Authored by: egilDOTnet on May 01, '02 02:37:13PM

It worked for me, but beware that you cannot use TextEdit for this. Try to open the file in jEdit itself, then add the line (copy/paste) at the bottom, so its on its own line there, save, quit jEdit and restart it.



[ Reply to This | # ]
Screen menubar...
Authored by: labmonky on May 01, '02 10:41:03PM

You gotta make sure you have the Mac OS Adaptive setting is set in the for the Swing Look and Feel. Also as "egilDOTnet" mentioned in his post, you can't make the edits with TextEdit. When I made the changes I actually did it from the CLI with emacs as root, but that might not be necessary.



[ Reply to This | # ]
I had used vi...but...
Authored by: robg on May 03, '02 11:11:01AM

for some reason, it didn't work. I opened the file again, deleted the line that was already there, pasted the same line again, saved, and ... everything worked!

Go figure...

-rob.



[ Reply to This | # ]
Re: I had used vi...but...
Authored by: labmonky on May 03, '02 03:04:38PM

Glad to hear it worked out. It is much nicer once you configure it to work like a native app. Now, once apple releases the 1.4 JDK/JRE maybe we will get our mouse wheel working!



[ Reply to This | # ]
Re: I swear by jEdit
Authored by: wouter on May 13, '02 05:36:33PM

I have just downloaded, installed and tried JEdit on my iBook. Works fine, but I would like to adapt the look to something a bit more Aqua-like. When I followed your instructions, I could not find the resource file you mentioned... (and yes, I was looking at the right place).

Have recent versions of the Mac OS X .dmg been changed? Could you post the minimum content for the file to make your tip work?



[ Reply to This | # ]
Re: I swear by jEdit (addtional info)
Authored by: wouter on May 23, '02 06:47:51PM

Better late than never: after some email with the author of the tip (thanks again!) I have found out that my problem is NOT how to change the resource file (I have done so with other Java apps), but how to ACCESS the file!

* After mounting the downloaded jEdit .dmg file, I can find and view the MRJApp.properties file - but since the image is write-protected...
* After copying the entire folder on the disk image (to a hard disk or a new .dmg file), I can no longer open the Contents folder, even though the Info panel shows that it contains 136 K...

Strange! Can anyone explain this behaviour?



[ Reply to This | # ]
Re: I swear by jEdit (solution)
Authored by: wouter on May 27, '02 06:42:50PM

My problem in accessing the file is caused by the access rights to the folders and files in the jEdit.app folder.

The solution is quite simple: you have to make the necessary change to the file from within the Terminal application: start a shell, navigate to the file using 'cd', and then use 'vi' or 'pico' to edit the file. Save and presto: you have a Java app that looks like an Aqua app.

More on making a Java application behave like the real Mac OS X thing can be found in Apple's Technote TN2042 at http://developer.apple.com/technotes/tn/tn2042.html .



[ Reply to This | # ]