I tried using CodeAid but couldn't get it to work reliably so gave up. I now use DotComplete and it took a bit of config but when I finally understood what was going on, found it worked well.

Incidentally, I think DotComplete requires JDK 1.4.

In response to the statement "DotComplete completes only after you type a . character.", yes it is true that this is the default behaviour, but in fact you can make it sooo much better by adding your own keyboard shortcuts.


More on that in a moment. First off though, I found getting DotComplete to work was a bit of a trial because I misconfigured the classpath, and probably other things besides. At first it wouldn't show the popup dialog so here are my notes on things to check for...

DotComplete Fails to show popup dialog
If DotComplete fails to popup members dialog, and instead complains about a parser error, the chances are something is misconfigured.

Check Plugin Manager and ensure that DotComplete is displayed, and does not have an error (i.e. it is not displayed in red).

Check if the classpath for DotComplete is incorrect. If it is set to use JCompiler's classpath, check that JCompiler compilation works.
If that's ok, set DotComplete's classpath to 'custom' and then back to JCompiler to pickup. Ensure that all necessary paths are explicitly specified in JCompiler's classpath.

Note that DotComplete and JCompiler do behave slightly differently even if using the same classpath, and it is possible for JCompiler to work even if DotComplete gets an error. It is possible that a failure in DotComplete's parsing of a member class (e.g. because the member source has been removed) can cause problems even though jcompiler will work ok, perhaps (especially if you have old out-of-date classes kicking around on your hard disk)

Also note that if you are using JCompiler's classpath, and in JCompiler you specify "Required Library Path", or make use of $basepath, I don't think these get passed to other plugins that make use of it - so you'll want to specify the classpath in JCompiler in full (I think!) i.e. unless you are only using JCompiler and nothing else depends on it, don't use $basepath and Required Lib Path.

Try viewing the Activity log (Utilities-Troubleshooting-Activity Log) and see if there are any errors being produced. Sometimes noclassdeffound exception appears to cause problems.

Try File-Reload All. This has been known to clear the problem on my pc.

Try restarting JEdit.

OK now on to the bit that I was going to talk about at the start

Specify a shortcut key to display Completion Dialog

Go to following option (in v4.2pre9):
Utilities-Global Options-JEdit-Shortcuts

Select "Plugin:DotComplete" from "Edit Shortcuts" dropdown.

Click "Primary Shortcut" box next to "Complete"

In "Specify Shortcut" dialog, press a key combination of your choice. I set it to Ctrl+Space because that is what I used in a different environment. Unfortunately this is already taken by "repeat last editor action" (which I don't use) so you may wish to choose a different combination.

Click Apply
Click OK

Now whenever you are typing a method or the caret is within a piece of text, press your key combo (e.g. Ctrl+Space, in my case) and DotComplete will popup to help you on your way.

Shame it doesn't seem to work for Import statements, but that's what LazyImporter, JImporter and JTools are for, I guess...

hth