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Have you tried jEdit? It rules. http://www.jedit.org/

Additional information at http://community.jedit.org/index.php

It's written in Java, but it's still fast, and you can run it on all the platforms you might have at home or work. You can also very easily emulate most of the features you mentioned: tabbed documents, file management, syntax highlighting, etc. Plus, it is very extensible with macros, reconfigurable key shortcuts, plug-ins, etc. Try it!

Perhaps best of all, it's free (as in beer)!

Download it here!

Have you tried jEdit? It rules. http://www.jedit.org/

Additional information at http://community.jedit.org/index.php

It's written in Java, but it's still fast, and you can run it on all the platforms you might have at home or work. You can also very easily emulate most of the features you mentioned: tabbed documents, file management, syntax highlighting, etc. Plus, it is very extensible with macros, reconfigurable key shortcuts, plug-ins, etc. Try it!

Perhaps best of all, it's free (as in beer)!

Download it here!

Have you tried jEdit? It rules. http://www.jedit.org/

Additional information at http://community.jedit.org/index.php

It's written in Java, but it's still fast, and you can run it on all the platforms you might have at home or work. You can also very easily emulate most of the features you mentioned: tabbed documents, file management, syntax highlighting, etc. Plus, it is very extensible with macros, reconfigurable key shortcuts, plug-ins, etc. Try it!

Perhaps best of all, it's free (as in beer)!

Download it here!

$179 is quite high for this sort of thing. But it's got a loyal following from the early Mac days that will pay (or at least talk their bosses into paying). I wonder how many people would shell out the cash if it came out of their own pocket? I'm sure there are some who do, but not me. In this vein, it's a lot like IntelliJ or SlickEdit.

When the freeware 6.1 version for OSX started getting crashy, I switched to JEdit. Ant and CVS integration, autocompletion, code refactoring, you-name-it plugins. It's cross platform and open source!

jEdit is the best text editor I've ever come across. I wasn't looking for a java app, merely a free text editor that would allow me to easily define my own syntax highlighting (for an obscure scripting language for a data acquisition tool that still makes me shudder when I think about it). that was nearly 3 years ago and I've been using it every day ever since. it's editing features are superb, it's endlessly configurable and is extensible through its plugin mechanism to the point of being a fully-featured java IDE. the performance is good enough that I the fact that it's java is a non-issue. it just isn't something that I have to think about. I'm not claiming that it's as fast as it would be if it had been written in C++, nor am I claiming that java / swing is the perfect solution for all desktop apps (it's certainly not) but it IS a very useful java desktop application that I use 8 hours a day every working day of my life.

bought my macromedia, and shitcanned. it was a good ide for windows. eclipse is great, but a litle heavy. for overall use, try jedit

I use jEdit at work for pretty much everything. It has a load of plug-ins that make my job easier, such as tools for: Ant, SpeedJava, FTP, Telnet, CVS. It's about the best IDE I've used for development in any language.

www.jedit.org

jEdit has a great plugin for CVS called GruntSpud that when used with jDiff does the same job as Code Historian all inside of one app

This may be a little off topic, but I thought it'd be a good time to ask: Can anyone recommend a good free/Free editor for HTML? I'm not looking for a WYSIWYG editor -- just something that allows me to hand-code more easily (with syntax highlighting and the like).

My current favorite is probably Crimson Editor. Its big features include syntax highlighting (of course), a tabbed interface, and change detection (it notifies the user if someone else has changed the file on-disk).

Any others I should look into? I've heard the suggestions for jEdit, but it doesn't seem to have a tabbed interface (at least not that I could manage to activate). HTML Kit is another one that always comes up, but I don't believe it has change-detection :-/.

Just because an IDE or a text editor is written in Java doesn't mean it can only be used to create other Java apps. That's the silliest thing I've ever heard.

The biggest thing I would miss if I went back to a text editor would me the auto-completion. Some call it code-sinsight, aother code-completeion, other auto-complete. But he fact that I can get a quick in-place list of methods/members without referring to another file, or documentation, ro header file, is awesome.

I know, I know, it sounbs so trivial. But I believe this to have been the biggest efficienncy in IDE design ever! And, I'm sorry, notepad just doesn't have it.

jEdit, on the other hand... that's what I would call a text editor that gets confused smetimes and thinks it's an OS.

I'll have to try the new eclipse release....again.

I first looked for alternatives to IBM's VisualAge for Java and Metroworks Codewarrior when Eclipse was first released. I was hoping it would be enough, but then I got fed up with it & started using jEdit. I like having a decent functioning editor and then customizing it into a developing environment that suits my needs. Plugins are being released for the two at a comparable rate.

Well, there's Acquisition, a Gnutella client for OS X that's written in Java. Actually, it's based on Limewire, which is also written in Java. They're both open source.

There's also jEdit, which I haven't used but seems to be getting a bit of a cult following as a new GUI text editor.

One day I'll learn to type and proofread...

JEdit

This is about tools, not languages.

Tools should make your life easier, not harder. Unfortunately, many Java IDEs fail to take this concept quite far enough.

I've used NetBeans for several years, but having finished a few weeks of C# work, I am now missing the IDEs code folding.

Yes, I know that's available in JEdit.

In fact, that's part of the problem. Anything feature you could possibly want from a Java IDE is out there. Some in NetBeans, some in Eclipse, some in JEdit, some in Idea, (the list goes on) but not all of them in one place.

-- Aumaden

I tried switching to Linux for over a year, but it just didn't work out. In my case, Windows costs less for me to use than Linux did - I can get all of my work done in Windows, but only most of it in Linux. Therefore, I use Windows and not Linux for my own personal desktop.

I'm still open to changing back, should the situation change. For the time being, Windows is the better platform for my usage. The cost of not being able to use VPN and play various games while using Linux outweighs, for me, the freedoms Linux offers. I wouldn't say, or expect, that's true for everyone. But it is for me. Hence, I currently use Windows for my desktop.

Go ahead - use Linux. I'm not saying you shouldn't. The more people that use Linux, the better. But it isn't for me. Windows is a better platform for me. Keep in mind that just because I use Windows does not prevent me from using Open Source software - I use Mozilla for my browsing, Gimp for image/digital photo editting, Cygwin for my command prompt, jEdit for text editting, Ant and Tomcat for my job...

Just my $0.02, but JEdit fills the gap that BBEdit Lite leaves, and has all of the (and more) capabilities of BBEdit Lite with the added bonus of being cross-platform.

Moreover, my experiences (as an end user, not developer) with Java have been misreable. It's performance sucks and is typically intolerable for daily usage.

I had rather the same impressions, as an end user, of Java apps. Then I went and got all hooked on using JEdit a little while back. I wasn't looking for a Java app, I was looking for a feature rich text editor.

Aside from a cool app, JEdit was the first glimpse I'd ever seen of the promise of Java. Here was something that I could actually use on darn near any platform (FreeBSD in this case). Essentially you could have several people on whatever flavor of OS they prefer all utilizing the same tool. Although the original author developed this app on Linux, the cross platform nature of it has brought the far larger audience of Windows and Mac users into the mix, developing plug-ins and syntax schemas. Similar projects, such as Kate or NEdit may never enjoy such a large or diverse development community being locked into essentially a Unix only environment.

That was always supposed to be the promise of Java as a platform to develop on.

More end user kinds of applications like this built on Java would certainly do more to advocate the language than any big dollar advertising campaign.

In all fairness though, it does take a considerable startup time versus a C based editor. I tend to use NEdit when I need an editor up quick, then use JEdit when I'm working on larger projects.

I use JEdit.

But only to edit .java files, though... I guess you have a point about java applications, then.. :/

I was just reading Petreley's latest article at Linux World where he rambles on about client side Java and how JEdit is the proof that client side Java has arrived. I don't know if I agree although I do think JEdit is a nice editor.

Apparently, you can write major book projects with jEdit.

jEdit is an open-source Java text editor that supports XML tag completion and DTD validation, ensuring that you can enter DocBook XML without having to continually refer to the documentation. I use it a lot on Mac OS X, IRIX and Linux. It's not the fastest (being Java) but it works well and ensures that I spend more time writing documentation than reading other documentation.

In this spirit, why don't you put jEdit on the CD. I've oscillated between vim and jEdit personally, but there's no question which one I'd rather give to a novice. jEdit is much, much simpler to understand. It's graphical (no, gvim isn't graphical). It also has many keyboard shortcuts, though not quite to vim's taste. I have hopes it will even be capable of moded operation through the Vimulator plugin (which needs a lot of work still).

It's mostly a programmer's editor, but there's no reason to ever use notepad when it's around.

As far as text editors go, jEdit is by far the best IMO.

And as for browsers, although it's only 0.1, Phoenix is the best I've ever used, I only got it yesterday, after having mozilla and never quite feeling right, always using IE except for testing. However, I'm an instant convert, I'm in Phoenix as we speak, it hasn't had any noticible bugs and the tabs were the main reason I even considered Moz, so now I have 12 sites in 1 window, it's just mozilla with any annoyances taken out, i love it.

Limewire and Jedit are two very nice programs that are GPLed. The programs run pretty fast and run on most popular platforms (being Java). Pretty cool when your P2P software has the same interface on Linux, Solaris, and Windows. Having the same interface makes answering your families' questions rather easy.

Jedit is pretty amazing.

IDE's are for wimps: Use JEdit -- it's a free text editor with some very powerful plugins for java.

they did not understand that you have to be able to code games (graphics) in it before someone will pick it up

SWING is not to bad now only thanks to 2GHz client side machines

what we need is an open classpath (pun I know) and a gcc that can compile it (which people are doing) so its looking good for java and open source

frankly SUN should submit the large bulked up version to EMACA and keep the emmbeded versions and swing and JDBC for itself and save a hell of a alot by not haveing to fund all of this via a profit makeing comapny instead have a java Foundation which is Non profit

god why is this so hard for scott and co to do

I'm glad Java's not dead on the client, or I'd have a helluva time running jEdit...

EYARG!

Sorry...emacs...shudder.

I'm a jEdit guy, myself.

Good technical manuals: WebLogic is expensive, and I wouldn't use it for personal use, but they have great respect IMO for the developer. Their APIs are fully documented in clear, technical language, they have samples for everything useful, and many many FAQs. Their docs are also updated for new releases. I think good docs will make or break a product, unless it's so easy to use that command-line help is enough or it's "intuitive" (like WinZip on Windows)

Straightforward user interface:Even if you have the docs, the truth is I won't read them till I need them. I tend to install the thing and then browse around to see what I can do. If it's an editor, I start typing. If it's a drag and drop GUI builder, I start building. While there's something great about developing your own unique interface and way of looking at the world, at least allow for an "idiot's option" that gets me feeling productive; or, that the tool hasn't gotten in the way of what I'm doing. Kudos to tools like JEdit, for example, which I had up and running and compiling with in maybe an hour. Blahs to APIs like Xerces, which I can use, but which have an absolutely confusing API in some cases (how do you move an Element from one Document to another? where's the changeParent() call?)

Let the FAQs lead the way:A number of others posted that your should publish your knowledge base, but I'd also add that a good FAQ system is a good lead-in for developer interest in your newsgroups. Basically, it will draw people there even if the newsgroups are new. I suspect you'll also spend the early rollout manning the newsgroups yourself. Roll your answers into the FAQs; searching newsgroups is tedious work. The worst thing to find are newsgroups with many, many unanswered threads (like Sun's Java site) and scanty FAQs. JGuru has a very good set of FAQs.

Good luck! Let us all know when it's released.

p!yaya

Runs everywhere with plenty of add-ons. Plus one that emulates VI.

jedit.org

I cannot imagine Java being of much use for StarOffice on OSX, given that the visual side of Java, AWT and Swing are very slow under OSX compared to Linux and XP.

Actually, MacOS X is probably the best platform for Java development and use. MacOS X has great, fast java support. I use jEdit as my main gui text editor on my Mac.

In any case, I think the article got it wrong. I doubt that the StarOffice gui would be done in Java.

For the bigger project stuff it's either JEdit or XEmacs. Both are stable, cross platform and loaded with features. I'm still trying to decide which one I like best. ;-)

I'm like jedit a lot. I have used textpad and like it. However, lately I am using all diiferent kinds of systems. I have a PC at work, I go home and use my Mac (bbedit formerly) and a debian linux box and I've come to use jedit on all of them.

It's not quite as bad switching around if you work on two platforms, but even then, having the same interface and features across the board is awesome.

It works great with CVS and ANT too!

If you can stand the resource usage (and really, if you are used to Emacs, you have absolutely no excuse :p), try jEdit (www.jedit.org). It is an editor written in Java, and it is excellent. It is extensible with plugins, and is scriptable (but you don't have to use/see any of this if you don't want). It has powerful syntax highlighting, abbreviation/auto expansion, built in file browser, integration with Ant, etc.

How about jEdit? It's java-based, open-source, with syntax highlighting for some insane number of languages, has a plugin community base, etc.

http://www.jedit.org

jEdit (available here) is available anywhere there's a reasonably recent Java2 runtime. On Windows with J2SDK1.4, I've noticed that it takes a fair bit of time to load up, but once loaded it's acceptably snappy--it's never going to win points for speed, but it manages to not be noticeably and/or annoyingly slow, which is good.

It has bindings for something like 50 different languages, from Ada to SQL and every-other-thing in between. I have been exceptionally pleased with jEdit so far, at least on Win32. On UNIX, jEdit is a little slower, to the point where it enters noticeably and annoyingly slow, but it's still a defensible choice.

If you do a lot of crossplatform work (I do) and want to keep your basic work environment the same in both environments, you can do an awful lot worse than jEdit.

I have heard great things about BBEdit.

Never tried it, but I'm pretty convinced it must be.

Myself--I've been mesmorized by Jedit.

It's wonderful. I've never used it to write anything in Java; the J is for the fact that it is written in Java. It's a little slower than other editors I've used, but far more powerful, and the miniscule slowdown and extra memory consumption are more than worth it. The fact that it's open source is just icing on the cake.

I love Jedit!

Thanks to all those who work on the project! Amazing!

"write once, run anywhere," and gave us "write once, debug everywhere."

It's an old saying. Well-written java application like JEdit and Netbeans have the degree of portability Java should have. You said Java is a moving target of your taste, while you want us to pardon the chaos from Perl 5 to Perl 6 just because you like Perl? :)

Nowaday we can still hear the echo of screaming of my colleagues when they ran Perl 5 codes on Perl 6. :)

... I have yet to see a Java app that is worth my time.

I won't even get into to how great Tomcat and other server-side java technology is for developers, but I will mention a few client-side java apps:
Jedit - The fabulous text/code editor.
Robocode - Learn to program! Play a cool game! Same thing!
LimeWire - Everyone loves P2P! Share the love.
Runescape - An MMORPG that runs on Linux and Mac (besides Windows) thanks to java? Hell Yeah!

Go back to browsing msn.com you mindless XP automaton! Not everyone creams at the sight of another buggy MFC shareware app.

I have used jEdit since 3.2, on NT, and GNU/Linux and it is definitely a very expandable, configurable solution. I have had some configuration issues and plugin compatibility problems, but I tend to stay quite close to the head. Slava Pestov and all of the jEdit community deserve a big thank you!

IDE's are just text editors with smarts. Check out jEdit.org. Its small, extensible, and runs anywhere there is a java runtime. Oh, and it's free.

why spend ANY time doing that when so many other people/companies do it better...check out jedit if you want a really good, free one. (Java required.)

Besides, Windows development (for better or for worse) is all about the IDE. I doubt MS sees the need to throw any effort into developing notepad. And look at what they're doing w/"Computer Management" using their management console...GREAT idea, IMHO, to provide a standardized interface for configuration. We don't need notepad to edit win.ini anymore like we did back in the 3.1 days.

Yes, I have VPC/2 and I am running OS/2 @ home. I only need Win32 if I get an application (like tax application in Germany or a library application) I can not use with ODIN.

This happens only five times a year and for all other my wife and myself use OS/2!

Some examples:

• Communication with ADSL or/and ISDN, to FidoNet and the Internet.
• Answering machine
• Programming with jEDIT on a native Java aplication.
• Exchanging Sounds and songs with AudioGalaxy/2 or LimeWire in the GNUtella network
• Word processing, Using Spreadsheet or Layout application with Papyrus or StarOffice 5.1a.
• Web Browser like Mozilla or Opera
• ...and many, many more

My source is www.os2.org and as long as I can work with OS/2 I will do it because it is fast, rock solid and it has a nice GUI the *nix community could learn from!

jEdit's excellent (and very logical) plugin architecture is extensively described in the documentation. Check the site for more details.

Small list of open-source Java projects:

• Jakarta - the Apache Software Foundation's primary Java development site. Most notable are their Tomcat and Ant projects.
• Xerces - a pure-Java XML parser (there's a C++ version too) - also by the Apache Software Foundation.
• jEdit - pure Java text editor. Very powerful and easily extensible with Java plugins.
• Over 4000 projects at SourceForge.
• Freenet - the idea behind the network has gotten a lot of publicity, it's client is written in Java.

There's quite a community based around Java - I would suggest people start looking at those aspects of its cover.

Removing excess whitespace need not make it unreadable if you have a tool that can easily parse XML. jEdit, for instance, has nice XML support via a plugin (hell, what doesn't jEdit have a plugin for?). It will display a nice, collapsible tree for you; I'm pretty sure another plugin will format XML files nicely. I'm sure there are myriad other Free/free tools available to do the same.

So anyway, I'd agree with removing whitespace, as long as your XML compresses significantly from this. If it's machine-generated, there's a decent chance whitespace is already minimized. If not, you may want to strip the whitespace and see if that improves performance adequately. If not, you could always pipe the output through a compression filter, too.

Much like Forte and JEdit it is too slow on my 500MHz machine - they are really cool and shows great potential, but it is very painful to try and work with. My 1GHz at work managed Eclipse pretty well though, so all hope is not out. But that was a very clean version, with no plugins, and I didn't have a semi-sized project open either, just tried a few classes to see how it worked.

I see the potential, but so far it is just not up to speed for me. Maybe I'll just need to upgrade my equipment, I am always looking for excuses to spend money I don't really have on my gear. :)

Thanks Slava and all jEdit developers

jEdit