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<book>
	<bookinfo>
		<author>
			<firstname>Alan </firstname><surname>Ezust</surname>
            </author>
            <author>
            <firstname>Slava</firstname><surname>Pestov</surname> </author>

		<copyright><year>2007</year>
		<year>2007</year><holder>Alan Ezust</holder></copyright>
		<legalnotice><title>Legal Notice</title>
			<para>
				Permission is granted to copy, distribute and/or modify this document
				under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License, Version 1.1 or
				any later version published by the Free Software Foundation; with no
				<quote>Invariant Sections</quote>, <quote>Front-Cover Texts</quote> or
				<quote>Back-Cover Texts</quote>, each as defined in the license. A copy of
				the license is included in the file <filename>COPYING.DOC.txt</filename>
				included with the jEdit distribution.
			</para>
		</legalnotice>
		<title>What's New in jEdit 4.3</title>
	</bookinfo>


    <preface id="preface">
    <title> Preface </title>

    <para> jEdit is a very mature text editor, and has gone through a very interesting phase of development. Left in a "prerelease" stage for about two years, it's had a long time to solifidy. Many of the original developers, including Slava Pestov, have stopped working directly on jEdit. Fortunately, because of the wonderful nature of open source, there are more and more eyeballs on this code than ever! We have received contributions of plugins, bugfixes, refactoring, and enhancements from around the globe, and our host, sourceforge.net <ulink url = "http://sourceforge.net/project/stats/detail.php?group_id=588&amp;ugn=jedit&amp;type=prdownload&amp;mode=year&amp;package_id=0"  >reports</ulink> that there are on average at least a half-million downloads per year, and this has been true for the entire millenium.
    </para>

    <para> In terms of actual releases, there may have been a slight lull while Slava's absense was sinking in among the other members of the community, but in 2006, thanks to their generous donations of time, effort, and coding skills, we started releasing regular prereleases again, fixing bugs in the core and each other's plugins, making jEdit more stable, coherent, and useful than ever. </para>

    <para> The thing that really excites me is seeing members of the community get more actively involved in improving jedit or its plugins. The core is huge, and there are over 164 plugins, so there is an endless source of things to do. I anticipate that the trackers will always have many open issues, but I see many of the old ones finally being closed, and that is very much satisfying. I can say with complete confidence that 4.3 is an improvement over 4.2 in many different ways. I hope that after you read this document, you will think so too, and perhaps want to join in on the development of future versions of jEdit or its plugins. </para>

    <para> I watch the tracker traffic (<literal>jedit-devel</literal>) and commit logs (in the <literal>jedit-cvs</literal> mailing list) with fascination, learning new Java tricks, or new jEdit tricks. It's quite satisfying to be this imtimate with code that I find I am using every day. I feel I am on a first-name basis with all of the active committers, and I've given and/or received help from every one of them. While it is true, there are parts of it that could be designed a little better, it is still the best open source editor I've seen. Thanks to the plugins themselves, because they are broken up into neat little packages, it is easier for us to isolate and fix bugs. As long as I am using it, I will be compelled to fix bugs that annoy me, be they in the core, or any of the plugins I happen to use. </para>

    </preface>

    <preface id="acknowledgements">
    <title> Acknowledgements </title>

    <para> This release would not have been possible if it were not for the *constant* help and efforts of Dale Anson, Jeffrey Hoyt, Marcelo Vanzin, Matthieu Casanova, and Björn "Vampire" Kautler. I would also like to give sincere thanks to all of the other core and plugin developers who have made <ulink url = "../CHANGES.txt">significant contributions</ulink> to help keep this editor alive and on the cutting edge. </para>
    </preface>

    <chapter id="compatibility"><title> Java Compatibility </title>

    <para> jEdit 4.2 runs on Java 1.3 or later, but jEdit 4.3 requires Sun Java 1.5.0 or later. Older versions of Java are not supported.  </para>

    <para>
    If you want to use the new LCD Antialiasing feature of Java 1.6, it is supported. From <guimenuitem>Global Options - Text Area - Antialiased Smooth Text</guimenuitem>: select <emphasis role="bold">Subpixel</emphasis>, and un-check the <emphasis role="bold">Fractional Font Metrics</emphasis> checkbox. </para>
    </chapter>


	<chapter id="user-changes">
    <title>User-Visible Changes</title>

	<section id="readded"><title>Re-added Features</title>
	<para>
	 Soft wrapping to the text area, one of my personal favorite features, is possible again, by setting the wrap width to zero. Thank you Slava! I really missed that feature. It's probably the main reason I started using, testing, and later developing jEdit 4.3.
	</para>

	</section>

	<section id="plugin-manager"><title>Plugin Manager</title>
	<para>
 The three panes of the PluginManager have all been reworked and made more keyboard friendly. They handle multiple selections, the checkbox states don't get lost when you switch panes, and the manage panel now automatically loads dependent plugins if they are already downloaded. Anyone who is used to 4.2's plugin manager will notice the difference immediately.
	</para>

	<para>
	 If you are a plugin developer, see <xref linkend="api-changes"/>.
	</para>

	</section>
    
	<section id="editing">
        <title>Text Editing</title>

	<para>
	 <ulink url="http://java.sun.com/j2se/1.5.0/docs/guide/imf/index.html">Input Methods</ulink> are now supported in jEdit. This should make it much easier for people to use alternate keyboard input methods to use jEdit and enter Chinese/Korean/Japanese characters, as well as other alternative input devices.
	</para>

	</section>

	<section id="syntax">
    <title>Syntax Highlighting</title>
	 <para>
	  Many syntax highlighting modes were updated or rewritten to use the java.util.regex instead of gnu.regex. Some modes were added, bring the total now to 150 languages.
	 </para>

	</section>

    
    <section id="regexp-changes">
    <title> Regular Expressions </title>
    
    <para> Most of the core code has been rewritten to use <literal>java.util.regex</literal> instead of <literal>gnu.regexp</literal>, so be sure to keep that in mind as you are composing your own regular expressions, whether they are in mode files, search expressions, or in your own plugins. </para>

    </section>    
	<section id="search"><title>Search and Replace</title>

	<para>
	 Added <guimenuitem>Skip Binary</guimenuitem> and <guimenuitem>Skip Hidden</guimenuitem> options for Directory Search.
	</para>

	</section>

	<section id="encodings"><title>Handling of Multiple Encodings</title>

	<para>
	 A full list of encodings supported by your Java implementation is now shown in the file system browser's <guimenu>Commands</guimenu>&gt;<guimenuitem>Encoding</guimenuitem> menu and other places. Previously only a small list of common encodings was shown.
	</para>

	<para>
	 You can choose which of this list you want to display in the Encodings general options pane.
	</para>

	<para>
	 The encoding used by XML files is (should be?) auto-detected if the file provides an XML declaration like the following:
	</para>

	<programlisting><![CDATA[<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>]]></programlisting>
	</section>

	<section id="vfs.browser"><title>File System Browser</title>

	<para>
	 The file system browser is much more keyboard friendly, and supports some common shortcuts set by default in KDE and Windows (del, f2, f5, backspace).
	</para>


	</section>

	<section id="bundled-macros"><title>Bundled Macros</title>

	<para>
	 There are a number of new bundled macros, and most of the existing ones have undergone enhancements and bug fixes. jEdit 4.2 bundled 58 macros in 7 categories; jEdit 4.3 bundles 70 macros in 9 categories.
	</para>

	<para>
	  Of course you can create new macros of your own, either by recording actions or writing them from scratch.
	</para>

	</section>

	</chapter>

	<chapter id="api-changes">
    <title>API Changes</title>
    
    <para> There are quite a few API changes which are described in detail in the
    API docs, as well as the <ulink url="../CHANGES.txt">CHANGES.txt</ulink> file. Some of the most important ones for a developer are emphasized in this document, btu this is by no means a complete list. If ever you find that some of the API documentation is lacking or needs further explanation, please post a feature request or a question onto the -devel mailing list. </para>

    
    <section id="buffervsjeditbuffer">
    <title> Buffer vs jEditBuffer </title>
    <para> Now that the text area is independent of the rest of jEdit, various
    text area-related APIs that used to take org.gjt.sp.jedit.Buffer
    instances now take org.gjt.sp.jedit.buffer.JEditBuffers. </para>
    <para> BufferChangeListener and BufferChangeAdapter are now deprecated. Use
    BufferListener instead. </para>
    </section>
  
    <section id="api-plugins">
    <title> Plugin API changes </title>

    <para> jEdit 4.2 used to run plugins that were designed only for the 4.1 plugin API, but plugins that are missing the "activate" property will no longer load properly in 4.3final. </para>

    <para> There are two new properties that all plugins can have: <literal>description</literal> and <literal>longdescription</literal>. The former is just a string property, while the latter is a reference to an html or text file. See EditPlugin API docs for details. </para>
    </section>
	</chapter>

    <chapter id="new-plugins">
    <title> The core 4.3 plugins </title>

    <para> This chapter showcases the new(er) plugins that were under the most active development during jEdit 4.3. Some of them influenced the development of the jEdit core, and others are good enough to be incorporated into the core, but are left as separate plugins simply because it makes it easier for us to maintain and debug them. </para>

    <para> Navigator, providing a navigable history, is new and improved - it provides the user with Eclipse-like Navigation to previous locations, for each TextArea of each View. It uses new 4.3 EditBus messages which are now available in the public API, CaretChanging and BufferClosing. </para>

    <bridgehead>ProjectViewer</bridgehead>
    <para> For managing groups of files and organizing them into trees, ProjectViewer is very useful. It's been under active development, and many bugs are fixed quickly after they are found.  Its ability to filter its input set based on regular expressions or the contents of CVS/SVN/Perforce entries makes it especially handy for other plugins that use it, such as <emphasis role="bold">FastOpen</emphasis> and <emphasis role="bold">OpenIt</emphasis>, both of which are also recently updated for 4.3. </para>
    
    <para> ProjectViewer is also very important for language plugins that want to deal with file sets. It defines a project-wide property specification, that makes it possible to have different settings depending on what the active project is. </para>  

    
    <bridgehead>SideKicks and Language Plugins </bridgehead>
    <para> SideKick has been debugged and the documentation has been improved. Further, there is a new combobox that lets you choose your parser, and a new SplitPane to show you the contents of the hovered element. The combobox is especially important since there are multiple parsers that can be used on a given file, especially when you are working with Python, PHP, HTML, XML, or JavaScript files. </para>

    <para> Many language-specific plugins have been redesigned to use the new and improved SideKick. In particular, JPyDebug, JythonInterpreter, RubyPlugin, PHPParser, JavaSideKick, XML, and PerlSideKick. Be sure to try them out.
    </para>

    <para> In case you're looking for JavaCore, JBrowse, CodeAid, DotComplete, or PropertySideKick, they have all been merged (in terms of functionality) into the new JavaSideKick plugin. </para>

    <para> As for HtmlSideKick, JavaScriptSideKick, and XmlIndenter, they have all been merged into the new XML 2 plugin, which now includes two parsers for CSS, one for Ecmascript, and completion popups for elements and attributes in XML, CSS, and HTML.  </para>

    <para> If you use many different languages, you should also try out the very clever ContextMenu plugin, which I am seriously thinking of adding to the core one of these days. </para>

    <formalpara><title>Ant and Xerces</title>
    <para> Previously, Apache Ant was included in AntFarm, and Apache Xerces was included in the XML plugin. Both of these libraries were broken out of their respective plugins and given their own plugin status. This should help avoid some of the kinds of plugin conflicts that arose with previous versions of XML and AntFarm. </para>
    </formalpara>
    
    <formalpara><title>Console</title>
    <para> Console has many new features, improved error parsing, and more keyboard shortcuts. The command execution part was rewritten. You should read the changelog in the Console users guide for more details.  </para>
    </formalpara>

    <formalpara><title>Optional</title>
    <para> This is my first plugin, I hope you like it! It combines the three option panes (global, plugin and buffer) under a single tab pane. It saves me a lot of mouse clicks when I want to switch from plugin options ot shortcuts.  </para>
    </formalpara>

    <formalpara><title>FTP</title>
    <para> The FTP plugin strongly influences the development of the virtual file systems of JEdit, and on occasion, bugs in one place require fixes in the other. FTP is being developed in lock-step with the core, and the most recent FTP plugin is more bug-free than latest version that runs on jEdit 4.2final.
    </para>
    </formalpara>

    <formalpara><title>InfoViewer </title>
    <para> This plugin uses jEdit 4.3's action overriding API to serve as a replacement to the HelpViewer. Since I use/work with this instead of the built-in HelpViewer, I do not notice or fix  bugs in HelpViewer. Try it out - you might like it! At some point, I might merge this into the jEdit core, but for now, it's a separate plugin.    </para>
    </formalpara>

    <formalpara><title>XSearch</title>
    <para> XSearch is a replacement for the built-in search dialogs. Similarly, there are new features in XSearch which have not been put into the core yet. XSearch has good ProjectViewer integration too - you can search only the files that were added to the project. </para>
    </formalpara>
    </chapter>

    <chapter id="futureplans">
    <title> Future Plans </title>

    <para> During this process of cleaning up jEdit, I started on many projects and did not finish them. They are still worthwhile projects, ones I would like to get back to. As always, if there are any volunteers who would like to help out with them, please join the <literal>jedit-devel</literal> mailing list, look at some unassigned bugs and feature requests, and see if you can do any of them. Feel free to ask for help if you are stuck. The other developers are always happy to initiate someone new into the code.
    </para>

    <para>Also take a look at the <ulink url="../TODO.txt">TODO</ulink> file for examples of some of the work that was started but not finished yet on the core. Some plugins also have their own TODO lists.
    </para>

    </chapter>

</book>