A view is the jEdit term for an editor window. It is possible to have multiple views open at once, and each view can be split into multiple panes. jEdit remembers the state of open views between editing sessions.
View>New View creates a new view.
View>New Plain View creates a new view but without any tool bars or docked windows. This can be used to open a small, unobtrusive window for taking notes and so on.
View>Close View closes the current view. If only one view is open, closing it will exit jEdit, unless background mode is on; see Chapter 1, Starting jEdit for information about starting jEdit in background mode.
View>Split Horizontally (shortcut: Control-2) splits the view into two text areas, placed above each other.
View>Split Vertically (shortcut: Control-3) splits the view into two text areas, placed next to each other.
View>Unsplit Current (shortcut: Control-0) removes the split containing the current text area only.
View>Unsplit All (shortcut: Control-1) removes all splits from the view.
When a view is split, editing commands operate on the text area that has keyboard focus. To give a text area keyboard focus, click in it with the mouse, or use the following commands.
View>Go to Previous Text Area (shortcut: Alt-Page Up) shifts keyboard focus to the previous text area.
View>Go to Next Text Area (shortcut: Alt-Page Down) shifts keyboard focus to the next text area.
Clicking the text area with the right mouse button displays a popup menu. Both this menu and the tool bar at the top of the view offer quick mouse-based access to frequently-used commands. The contents of the tool bar and right-click menu can be changed in the Utilities>Global Options dialog box; see the section called “The Context Menu Pane” and the section called “The Tool Bar Pane”.
Various jEdit and plugin windows can be docked into the view for convenience. Dockable windows have a popup button in their top-left corner. Clicking this button displays a menu with commands for docking the window in one of four sides of the view.
On each side of the text area where there are docked windows, a strip of buttons is shown. There is a button for activating each docked window, as well as a close box and a popup menu button, which when clicked shows a menu for moving or undocking the currently selected window. The popup menu also contains a command for opening a new floating instance of the current window.
The commands in the View>Docking menu move keyboard focus between docking areas.
The status bar at the bottom of the view consists of the following components, from left to right:
The line number containing the caret
The column position of the caret, with the leftmost column being 1.
If the line contains tabs, the file position (where a hard tab is counted as one column) is shown first, followed by the screen position (where each tab counts for the number of columns until the next tab stop).
Double-clicking on the caret location indicator displays the Edit>Go to Line dialog box; see the section called “Working With Lines”.
A message area where various prompts and status messages are shown.
The current buffer's edit mode, fold mode, and character encoding. Double-clicking one of these displays the Utilities>Buffer Options dialog box. For more information about these settings, see:
A set of flags which indicate various editor features and settings. Clicking each flag will toggle the feature in question; hovering the mouse over a flag will show a tool tip with an explanation:
Word wrap - see the section called “Wrapping Long Lines”.
Multiple selection - see the section called “Multiple Selection”.
Rectangular selection - see the section called “Rectangular Selection”.
Overwrite mode - see the section called “Inserting and Deleting Text”.
Line separator - see the section called “Line Separators”.
A Java heap memory usage indicator, that shows used and total heap memory, in megabytes. Double-clicking this indicator opens the Utilities>Troubleshooting>Memory Status dialog box.
The visibility of each of the above items can be controlled in the Status Bar pane of the Utilities>Global Options dialog box; see the section called “The Status Bar Pane”.