(Last modified Tue Jan 22 22:41 2008)

jEdit is a great text editor -- portable (Java), free (Gnu), extensible, fast (granted, it takes time to load), and powerful.  I use it for almost everything and I've been extremely satisfied. 

I've extended it myself of course, in a minor way.  The edit modes for some of the file types I work with regularly were weak, so I made improved versions for and .  These are to be released as part of the jEdit distribution starting with release 4.2pre12. 

mode v1.2

There had been no separate mode distributed with jEdit, only an anonymously-provided TeX mode that is extremely sparse:  it distinguishes a number of special characters, the TeX math mode environments $...$ \[...\] $$...$$ (the last of which is not valid in ), and comments; nothing more.  It is very minimally helpful for . 

This one is far, far more useful. 

1. It is immeasurably more complete (2700 lines vs. 92), addressing every command, environment, and counter in Lamport's : A document preparation system (1994 2ε edition), plus a large selection from amstex and other packages.  Approximately 970 distinct items are covered. 
2. It handles all the modes, highlighting the correct command sets in each mode and transitioning from mode to mode correctly:
   • normal
   • math modes (math, displaymath, $...$, \(...\), \[...\], \ensuremath, equation, equationarray, and equationarray*)
   • tabbing
   • tabular and tabular*
   • picture
3. It highlights the 30 other environments in Lamport.
4. It highlights the commands and counters appropriate for each mode (386 in normal mode, for example).
5. It highlights separately some common errors (for example, $$...$$ and bare [...]). 
6. It is generated from a summary of Lamport's book by a Perl script to ensure the highest degree of completeness and consistency now and as it evolves.

It is much easier to write files with this mode, I can assure you.  Misspelled or inappropriate commands are highlighted as you type, so you can spot and correct them immediately.

Recent fixes: 

• (v1.4 pre)  Syntax highlighting is no longer done within verbatim and verbatim* environments. 
• (v1.3)  Strings in "" are no longer highlighted.  \mathrm{ is recognized properly now.
• (v1.2)  Single-character accents such as \" are highlighted correctly even if their argument is not in {}. 

latex mode

mode v1.3

jEdit has had a specific mode, but it is lacking in several respects.  It highlights an (incomplete) set of fields, one of which is misspelled, does not highlight correct entries (it highlights anything following @), and does not relate entries and fields at all. 

This mode remedies all those shortcomings.  It's generated from Appendix B in Lamport, using a Perl script that generates complete rule sets for each entry type and cross-checks everything in the mode for consistency.  Features: 

1. Highlights all the entries and fields in Lamport (see table).

   Entries		Fields			Additional fields
   article book booklet conference inbook incollection inproceedings	manual mastersthesis misc phdthesis proceedings techreport unpublished	address annote author booktitle chapter crossref edition editor	howpublished institution journal key month note number organization	pages publisher school series title type volume year	abstract annotation day keywords lccn location references url

2. Includes a number of widely-accepted additional fields.
3. Dinstinguishes the appropriate required, optional, and other fields for each entry:  required fields in one color, optional in another, remaining fields in a third.
4. Highlights the month abbreviations.
5. Handles escaped quotes (like {\"o}) correctly.
6. Allows "text" and {text}, nesting of one within the other, and \{text\} and {text} inside either.
7. Allows @entry{...} and @entry(...).
8. Highlights @string{} and @string().

bibtex mode

HTML 4.01 mode v1.0

This mode is an experiment, since jEdit already has an HTML mode that is further supported by the XML plugin.  This experimental mode highlights every entity and attribute of the W3C HTML 4.01 specification — it is generated from the specification, in fact.  I suppose you could say it gives an alternative HTML editing experience:  lots of highlighting (especially of disallowed things), no auto-fill.  Each entity has its own mode, and attributes are highlighted appropriately for the entity containing them.  It does not distinguish correct from incorrect entity nesting, though (maybe in a future version). 

html401 mode

Thomas A. Alspaugh
Assistant Professor, Informatics Dept.
School of Information and Computer Sciences