Hot on the heels of the 4.0.3 release, the first pre-release in the 4.1 series is now available. Check out the change log; lots of new stuff here.

To make things easier for those on dialup, I have uploaded 2 unified diffs, one to patch the jEdit 4.0 source to 4.0.2, and the other to patch the 4.0.2 source to 4.0.3. They are only 10 Kb or so, so this beats having to download the whole package for each bug fix release, assuming you don't mind compiling from source, and using the appropriate tools to apply the patches.

• CheckStylePlugin 0.1: initial Plugin Central release; CheckStylePlugin is a wrapper around the CheckStyle program that allows you to check your code for adherence of deviation from a Coding Standard; requires jEdit 4.0, ErrorList 1.2, and JDK 1.3; includes CheckStyle 2.2 and ANTLR (checkstyle-all-2.2.jar)
  
  
• JavaRefactor 0.0.3: added the ExtractMethod refactoring; updated for jEdit 4.0; requires jEdit 4.0pre1 and JDK 1.3; includes RECODER
  
  
• JSwatPlugin 1.2.0: updated for JSwat 2.4 and JPDA; requires jEdit 4.0pre7, CommonControls 0.2, and JDK 1.4; includes JSwat 2.4

It seems the message boards section of this site is not being used very much, and I must admit I don't follow the postings much either. Perhaps this section should be shut down, and everyone encouraged to just use the mailing lists instead? Post your comments below.

Sun has released Java 2 Standard Edition, version 1.4.0_01. You can find a list of bug fixes here.
Post any comments you have about this release (good or bad) below.

Let me introduce Gruntspud ....
Gruntspud is a graphical CVS client that may be used either as a plugin to jEdit, or it may be used as a standalone application. It supports a variety of different connection methods including local, ext, pserver and server. About 50% of the main CVS commands are implemented, enough for it to be used for day-to-day stuff. Gruntspud is available for download at Sourceforge.

A jEdit icon pack, containing various icons in a variety of sizes and formats, is now available from the Icons and Images page. Thanks to Kris Kopicki for contributing this.

• FastOpen 0.4.1: initial Plugin Central release; FastOpen is a plugin designed to quickly open any file in the currect project by just typing in the first few characters of the filename you want to open; added ProjectSwitcher to allow switching ProjectViewer projects from FastOpen (Warren Nicholls); added Current Project to window title; FastOpen window is no longer modal (Ken Wootton); ProjectViewer is now kept open if it is already open (Ken Wootton); invalid filenames are now highlighted in red; use with multiple views is now supported; requires jEdit 4.0pre1, ProjectViewer 1.0.2, and JDK 1.3

• Console 3.3: file name completion when Tab key is pressed (Alexander Maryanovsky); error patterns can now specify a file name value of "$f", in which case the current buffer's path will be substituted; fixed generic error pattern for g++; fixed another possible problem if a program outputs an invalid line number in an error message; removed -encoding setting from the Jikes commando; requires jEdit 4.0final and JDK 1.3
  
  
• JcrontabPlugin 0.6: initial Plugin Central release; added properties pane and documentation; requires jEdit 4.0final and JDK 1.3; includes jcrontab 1.0 (jcrontab.sf.net)

I have recently begun working on jEdit 4.1. You can see some early work in the CVS repository. Changes so far include improved printing, improved syntax highlighting, various user interface improvements, SOCKS proxy support (for people behind an MS proxy server), and more. You can find a full change log here.

• FTP 0.3.4: hidden files were not listed, even if "Show Hidden Files" was selected in the file system browser; "Open from FTP Server" and "Save to FTP Server" commands opened the wrong directory on the remote server; the directory cache would sometimes only be invalidated after the file system browser reloaded the directory, resulting in an outdated directory listing; requires jEdit 4.0pre3 and JDK 1.3
  
  
• Lazy8Ledger 1.2: distribution updated to include database drivers previously missing due to a packaging error; requires jEdit 4.0pre8, BufferTabs 0.7.6, InfoViewer 1.1, and JDK 1.4

Version 1.3.1 of this Java code documentation tool now shows which methods override a method and supports the new "assert" keyword. Several other minor enhancements and bugfixes were also applied, and the documentation was revised.

• IRC 1.8.1: updated by Lionel Fiol; added some new commands (/CLEAR, /ECHO, /JOIN, /NICK, /QUIT, /QUOTE, and /WHOWAS); added new parameters to the /CONNECT command to allow specifying a different server, port, channel, or nick than those set through the option pane; fixed exceptions when using /CONNECT under JDK 1.3; requires jEdit 4.0final and JDK 1.3
  
  
• Lazy8Ledger 1.1: initial Plugin Central release; Lazy8Ledger is a full-featured accounting application implemented as a jEdit plugin; experience in double-entry accounting is necessary to ensure correct use; requires jEdit 4.0pre8, BufferTabs 0.7.6, InfoViewer 1.1, JDK 1.3

Recently, two positive reviews of jEdit were posted, one on a web site dedicated to MacOS X, the other on a web site about Linux.
Take a look at this review, and this one.

(PS: John, maybe the icon for the 'Installation' topic should be made a little better? )

• LineGuides 0.5.3: fixed problems with split views (bugs #529823 and #539117); requires jEdit 4.0pre4 and JDK 1.3
  
  
• TextTools 1.8: added "Columnar Insert" command (Nathan Tenney); requires jEdit 4.0pre1 and JDK 1.3
  
  
• TomcatSwitch 0.5.2: fixed a bug introduced with version 0.5.1 that prevented execution under systems different from Windows; requires jEdit 4.0pre2, Console 3.1, and JDK 1.3; works with Jakarta Tomcat 3.2.x, 3.3.x or 4.x
  
  
• VSSPlugin 0.1.1: fixed class name bug in actions.xml; requires jEdit 4.0final and JDK 1.3

If you have this error try to rename XML.jar to aXML.jar. It solve it on my machine.

Slava says: indeed. The reason is that XML sets a couple of system properties in its plugin start() method, and if it happends to be loaded after SQL, then the SQL startup might fail. The author of this story says he is working on a patch and will send it to the SQL plugin maintainer over the weekend; so this is just a fix you can use in the meantime.