Thanks for your quick response, Robert. I was actually running 4.3 pre-15 which may have been before this change. I can't understand why displaying the name of the environment variable (ie, the text string "%USERPROFILE%") is preferable to substituting its value.

AND... I just looked at another system, where I installed jEdit 5.0 a while ago from the .jar; and manually setup Options. It shows the actual pathname just fine in the title bar. So it feels like what I'm seeing may be related using the windows installer, or how it translates config files from earlier versions when upgrading.

Yea, this feature has been introduced later then pre15 . And certainly it's not specific to Windows or an installer type.

Since You're not the first irritated user, I filed a Feature request to make this behavior optional.

The request has been realized immediately!

You could try the latest daily build .

Disable "Utilities -> Options -> Global Options -> View -> Abbreviate paths with environment variables if possible".

Do you know what I think would be a great idea? Using environment variables in the stored properties files.

Sounds strange? Let me explain.

I'm using jEdit stored on an external 1.8" hard disk. When I use this hard disk on another computer, it could happen that I have another drive letter.

So my idea is to set, via batch scrpt which starts my jEdit, an environment variable like "JEDITDRIVE" or maybe "USERDOCUMENTS".

Each time I open a file, I would, if I understand correctly, see in my path, parts of it replaced with this environment variable's name, right?

So if now in the list of last opened files, or in any other list of files stored, this relacement also takes place, I would end up with a truly portable version of jEdit because the list does not read:

<PATH>F:\Documents\myfile.txt</PATH>

but

<PATH>%JEDITDRIVE%\Documents\myfile.txt</PATH>

or

<PATH>%USERDOCUMENTS%\myfile.txt</PATH>

Just my opinion, so filed another feature request . But don't expect it to be realized as fast as the last one