[HN Gopher] JEdit - Programmer's Text Editor
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       JEdit - Programmer's Text Editor
        
       Author : Tomte
       Score  : 85 points
       Date   : 2021-11-20 19:57 UTC (3 hours ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (www.jedit.org)
 (TXT) w3m dump (www.jedit.org)
        
       | ronnier wrote:
       | I just want notepad++ for the mac
        
         | slavapestov wrote:
         | BBEdit?
        
         | npteljes wrote:
         | I switched to Geany from Notepad++ when I moved to Linux, and
         | they have macOS build too. Features are not on par, but at
         | least the editor component is the same (Scintilla), and I could
         | set up some of the plugin functionalities as command line
         | functions (like formatting JSON with jq).
        
         | protomyth wrote:
         | I always wanted PFE for the mac, but I did a lot of data
         | munging that code editors tended to be bad at.
        
       | slavapestov wrote:
       | I started working on jEdit when I was 14 and developed it for 6
       | years or so. While I haven't used it in a very long time I'm
       | humbled to see that it is still being maintained and has users.
        
         | ldiracdelta wrote:
         | I still use it. Best directory regex search and replace ever.
        
         | a2800276 wrote:
         | I look back at JEdit very fondly. The whole project was very
         | inspiring to me, I was always impressed at the results you were
         | able to achieve.
         | 
         | Just out of curiosity: what editor do you use nowadays?
        
         | thedoctor79 wrote:
         | A great tool, trully a programmer's text editor. Used it for
         | more than 10 years, it seemed like it had plugins for virtually
         | eveything. I remember one time we had to work with huge XML
         | files, like 100 MB in size or so, and everyone was grepping
         | them or struggling with other editors, while jEdit had that
         | nice XML parser plugin which showed a nice hierarchical tree :)
         | Thanks for all the work put into it. Nowadays I tend to
         | gravitate towards KDevelop and others but I hope jEdit
         | continues on.
        
         | karmajunkie wrote:
         | you were 14?! i always pictured you as much older back in those
         | days when i was an avid user of it.
         | 
         | i found you on twitter awhile back, it brought back a lot of
         | memories of being the only guy in the office who insisted on
         | ecshewing IDEs in favor of something light yet capable like
         | jedit. it was truly ahead of its time.
        
         | bitexploder wrote:
         | Thanks for all the work. I used it for many years as my primary
         | software development editor.
        
         | protomyth wrote:
         | It had the feel of PFE for me which I loved when I was on
         | Windows. You did great work.
        
         | unicas wrote:
         | I use it for ages (besides emacs). Properly configured it can
         | stick with emacs at ease. The console plugin, however, might
         | benefit from a brush up, e.g. FX, so it could display
         | MathJax/KaTeX or PNG ...
        
       | diogenesjunior wrote:
       | For the longest, I have been looking for a text editor that uses
       | some of the themes used in highlight.js [0]. I can never seem to
       | find one whenever I look.
       | 
       | 0: https://highlightjs.org/
        
       | armchairhacker wrote:
       | Another good Java text editor is
       | https://github.com/bobbylight/RText. It's open-source w/ very
       | good documentation and you can embed the IDE (RSyntaxTextArea) in
       | your own app.
        
       | monocasa wrote:
       | Oh damn, that brings me back. First editor I used beyond notepad
       | for coding. Was required for my AP CS class in high school.
        
       | blibble wrote:
       | I remember hating Swing when it was new
       | 
       | but my god it's excellent UX wise compared to pretty much any
       | website
        
       | sys_64738 wrote:
       | But it's written in Java. No thanks.
        
       | nimbix wrote:
       | I've been using jEdit for probably around 18 years until around a
       | year ago when I fianlly switched to VSCode because,
       | unfortunately, it just couldn't keep up with all the modern
       | development in the dev tools space.
       | 
       | There are two features I really miss from jEdit:
       | 
       | * "dumb" autocomplete that will include any word in any open
       | buffer, even if it's a different type (html/css/js). VSCode kindo
       | of has word based autocomplete, but expected matches are just not
       | there on third of teh time.
       | 
       | * HyperSearch (search result in the sidebar) when searching in
       | the current buffer only. So much better than having one search
       | mode for single buffer, and a completely different one when
       | serching through multiple files.
        
         | wisemanwillhear wrote:
         | I keep an install of jEdit just for the HyperSearch feature.
         | 
         | The feature that got me hooked on jEdit many years ago was the
         | ability to define custom syntax highlighting for our custom
         | mini-languages with powerful directives that other highlighting
         | solutions couldn't match without building plugins/extensions.
        
         | djbusby wrote:
         | Long time jEdit user too sorta "forced" go VSCode for similar
         | reasons and missing the exact same two features.
         | 
         | Any ideas how to get those in VSCode? Anyone know any like
         | plugins?
        
       | I_complete_me wrote:
       | As a non-programmer, I am surprised that I have never heard of
       | this until now. I use vim, what would make me change / be
       | interested in jEdit?
        
         | spicybright wrote:
         | Unless you don't use features in vim that are available in
         | jEdit, I don't see why it would be worth switching.
         | 
         | I'm curious though, I don't meet many non-coders using Vim.
         | What's your main use case? What features do you use a lot in
         | Vim for what you do?
        
       | tkgally wrote:
       | Just to note that there's another long-established text editor,
       | for Macs only, with a very similar name: Jedit.
       | 
       | http://www.artman21.com/en/jeditOmega/
       | 
       | While this Jedit has features for programmers, I think it really
       | shines as an editor for people who write or work with Japanese
       | text. I've been using it on a daily basis for many years.
        
       | badsectoracula wrote:
       | I used jEdit years ago as my editor of choice for pretty much any
       | OS i used and it was very flexible with a lot of extensions (most
       | likely still is). I remember a friend of mine saying something
       | along the lines of "it isn't a true editor until you can read
       | email off it" (which i guess was his paraphrasing of JWZ's "Every
       | program attempts to expand until it can read mail" though i
       | didn't knew it at the time) as an attempt to tell me how Emacs
       | was better, but, sure enough, i quickly found an email plugin for
       | jEdit :-P. Though i never used that one, i did use the IRC client
       | plugin a bit.
        
       | liafail wrote:
       | Seeing the name and being unfamiliar with "J"Edit, I had hopes
       | this was an open source version of the 1982-~2018 commercial
       | "K"Edit editor.
       | 
       | I've been using Kedit for some time as my daily editor, but its
       | lack of UTF-8 support is becoming more dire by the year. Still,
       | the IBM ISPF/Xedit roots and Rexx support make for a powerful
       | environment. An overview of such "Eastern Orthodox" text editors
       | is on SoftPanorama:
       | 
       | http://www.softpanorama.org/Editors/eoe.shtml
       | 
       | A fascinating account of someone productively using Kedit is
       | included in the following article by John McPhee, of all people:
       | 
       | https://archive.mith.umd.edu/engl668k/wp-content/uploads/201...
        
       | marcodiego wrote:
       | Non anti-aliased fonts... That alone makes it non-atractive.
        
         | hermes8329 wrote:
         | It was really hideous. My first thought when reading the title
         | was remembering how terrible it was and thinking "yuuuuck"
        
         | kitd wrote:
         | It has anti-aliased fonts.
        
         | tablespoon wrote:
         | > Non anti-aliased fonts...
         | 
         | Sign me up. Font aliasing is the devil's work.
        
         | akx wrote:
         | There is a screenshot explicitly titled "subpixel antialised
         | fonts". http://www.jedit.org/index.php?page=screenshot&image=36
        
       | discreteevent wrote:
       | Great editor. Everything just worked as you thought it should.
       | The plugin system was clean and powerful. The FTP plugin was a
       | lifesaver. Used jedit to reverse engineer the design from a
       | legacy C++ codebase on Solaris. I don't think I would have
       | managed it in vim.
        
       | jrm4 wrote:
       | I started using this(still do) as the "recommended default" for
       | my intro web design and programming classes, mostly because I'm a
       | long time Linux user, and this would run exactly the same for all
       | of us everywhere. Solid stuff, thank you to the devs.
        
       | willvarfar wrote:
       | I remember being 'caught' developing for Metrowerks (anyone
       | remember that?) using jEdit. They smirked.
       | 
       | I used jEdit to do all my coding (mostly C/C++ in those days)
       | from the late 90s until finally going Jetbrains just a couple of
       | years ago.
       | 
       | I still use it regularly when I just want to edit a file or use
       | the jdiff plugin without starting a project and all the other
       | speed bumps that IDEs put in your way.
        
         | bellyfullofbac wrote:
         | User since maybe mid 00's here, I still load it to use the
         | rectangular select and multi-line cursor, and HyperSearch still
         | beats grep because I can jump to all instances of a searched
         | word and see the context before/after it (yeah grep has a flag
         | for this, but who knows how many lines the context should be).
        
           | willvarfar wrote:
           | Yeap the rectangular select and multi-line cursor thing! And
           | the find replace with new lines. And so much else that
           | mainstream IDEs seem to still struggle with!
        
       | marcrosoft wrote:
       | Nostalgic. This was my first text editor. I used it to learn
       | programming in perl.
        
       | paulryanrogers wrote:
       | A great editor which works everywhere Java does. I used it for
       | almost a decade alongside a few embedded SDKs, and on Mac, Linux,
       | and Windows. The ability to quickly define my own syntax file was
       | great for working with a niche language like Verifone TCL.
       | 
       | Find/replace among many files at once was also in the normal find
       | dialog, with a solid regexp implementation. Which seemed rare for
       | the era in which I used it.
       | 
       | These days we have VS Code and JetBrains so I don't use it any
       | more. Still, much nostalgia.
        
         | bigmattystyles wrote:
         | Sure but these (VSCode / JB) don't just load instantly, for me,
         | on Windows, it's still Notepad++ - on Linux, which is rare for
         | me, I still just vim
        
         | mavelikara wrote:
         | Similar story with me too. Used it for over a decade, but don't
         | use it any more.
         | 
         | The original author, Slava Pestov, created Factor programing
         | language and was working on Swift when I last heard.
        
         | _pmf_ wrote:
         | There was a time when a Swing application felt heavyweight, but
         | today, it feels extremely lightweight (including JVM startup).
         | 
         | (Not IntelliJ, which is horrible in every regard.)
        
           | paulryanrogers wrote:
           | > (Not IntelliJ, which is horrible in every regard.)
           | 
           | Curious, why is IntelliJ so thoroughly bad?
        
         | wildrhythms wrote:
         | This brings back memories. My professor (many years ago now)
         | had us use JEdit when learning Java because it lets us inspect
         | objects at runtime. Obviously not 'industry standard', but very
         | instrumental in learning about data structures and debugging.
         | So happy to see software like this still being maintained.
        
       | jensgk wrote:
       | A great light weight editor! I still use it from time to time.
        
       | [deleted]
        
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       (page generated 2021-11-20 23:00 UTC)