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Switching from Vi

• Don't bother with the Vimulator Plugin. It's a basic attempt at offering modal editing for jEdit, but it makes it difficult to use the full power of jEdit. It may improve in the future, but for now it makes migration to jEdit slower.

• Print out a list of the jEdit shortcuts and keep them handy, just like you did when you were learning commands for vi

• I created a macro that begins editing on the line above the current line. I found that I missed the "O" command dearly. I'll post the macro as soon as macro uploads are working on community.jedit.org.

• Start with as few plugins as possible and add them only as you need them. This will make jEdit start faster.

• I mapped ^D ^D to delete a single line. I got tired of moving around to select a line and then delete it. I'm mapping ^D and other key combinations to do vi delete tasks, like delete forward to character. The Next Char? macro is useful for this.

• The Emacs Browser? plugin is useful for getting around the filesystem without using the mouse. I used the vim explorer, and I set up the same mappings to bring up the Emacs Browser?.

• Try using the system tab on the console. It's surprisingly useful. It recognizes shell variables, and it does a good job completing.

• Coming from vi is an advantage, since you'll be used to editing in a small space. This leaves plenty of room on the left and right for docked windows.

• If you're programming an OO language, be sure to use Dot Complete. It was the reason I switched after using vi and vim for 15 years.

• The Jump! plugin works about as well as vim does with tags. It's not hard to configure if you follow the instructions.