jEditor 4 — Release Notes

jEditor 4.3

Released on 20 December 2021

A feature-packed release introducing new syntax highlighter, themes, and editor tab bar — with major usability and performance improvements across the app.

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• Syntax Highlighter
• Themes
• Editor
• Line Numbers
• Indenter
• Code Completions
• Document
• Main Menu
• Sidebar
• File Search
• Editor Tab Bar
• Path Bar
• Status Bar

Syntax Highlighter

• Added support for syntax highlighting of project variables, project functions, project types, URLs, and variables.
• Improved accuracy and performance of syntax highlighting across all supported languages.
• Added support for syntax highlighting of HTML, JavaScript, and CSS inside PHP files.
• Added support for syntax highlighting of CFScript, JavaScript, and CSS inside ColdFusion files.
• Added highlighting for all URLs and email addresses in documents.
• Added a symbol parser to list functions, headers, and sections for quick navigation within a document.

Themes

• Introduced a new theme format that reduces file size and improves load speed.
• Added new Forest (Light) and Forest (Dark) themes.
• Improved design of the editor tab bar, find bar, path bar, and status bar to better match the active document theme.
• Added support for remembering selected themes separately for light and dark mode.
• Fixed an issue where theme changes were not applied after closing the preferences pane.

Editor

• Added the ability to activate links by pressing the ⌘ key.
• Added highlight for the current line with theme-based background color.
• Improved vertical alignment to center text within lines for better readability.
• Improved performance when rendering invisibles and background updates.
• Added support for applying default line height to new rich text documents.
• Fixed an issue where horizontal scrolling did not work after unwrapping lines.
• Fixed an issue where pasting failed when a URL was not a file URL.
• Fixed an issue where Smart Links were always enabled for rich-text documents.
• Fixed an issue where selection color did not change to the inactive state when the editor lost focus.

Line Numbers

• Improved line number alignment and rendering performance.
• Added synchronized magnification that scales line numbers along with editor zoom.
• Improved selection handling to highlight line numbers instantly as the user selects text.
• Adjusted line number height dynamically per line for better consistency with variable font sizes.

Indenter

• Added automatic detection of indent style and tab width when opening documents.
• Added smart indentation for braces, parentheses, switch-case statements, and language-specific pairs.
• Added support for language-specific indentation in over 25 programming languages including Python, SQL, HTML, Bash, and Ruby.
• Added support for outdenting selections using ⇧ + ⇥.
• Fixed an issue where automatic indentation did not work when balanced pairs were disabled.
• Fixed an issue where inserting tabs in rich text documents could cause unexpected behavior or crashes.

Code Completions

• Improved performance and responsiveness of code completion suggestions.
• Added support for special characters such as $, #, and - within words.
• Added automatic scaling of the completion window to match editor zoom.
• Improved word scoring for more accurate and relevant completions.

Document

• Added support for opening the same document in multiple editors or windows simultaneously.
• Improved session restoration to reopen documents and windows in the correct order.
• Fixed an issue where document type was not correctly inferred after changing file extension or using “Save As.”

Main Menu

• Added new commands under View → Zoom: Zoom In, Zoom Out, and Reset.
• Added support for preserving zoom and scaling preferences between app launches.
• Updated Font → Bigger and Font → Smaller to adjust editor scaling when text is highlighted.

Sidebar

• Improved session restoration to preserve window and document order from the previous session.
• Improved handling of Open in New Editor and Open in New Window commands.
• Added smooth animations when toggling, resizing, or filtering the sidebar.
• Fixed an issue where sidebar thickness was not preserved between app launches.

File Search

• Improved performance and responsiveness when finding and replacing text in files.
• Added inline progress display for Find and Replace operations within the sidebar.
• Added support for Find Next, Find Previous, and Use Selection for Find commands.
• Fixed an issue where Replace All in selected files did not support undo and redo for open documents.

Editor Tab Bar

• Added a new editor tab bar for quickly switching between open documents.
• Added support for drag and drop to reorder open tabs.
• Added the ability to browse all open files and folders directly from the tab bar.
• Added support for switching between working directories directly from the tab bar.

Path Bar

• Redesigned the path bar with smoother animations and modern visuals.
• Added support for navigating related files and folders via right-click context menus.
• Added the ability to jump directly to document sections and symbols from the path bar.

Status Bar

• Added a new indent style button to switch between tabs and spaces.
• Added a tab width selector that reflects and updates the active document’s settings.
• Refreshed status bar design to better match modern macOS styling.

jEditor 4.2

Released on 8 June 2021

A feature-rich update introducing customizable key bindings, new language support for syntax highlighting, and major improvements in sidebar, editor, and find bar behavior.

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• Syntax Highlighter
• Editor
• Code Completions
• Key Bindings
• Sidebar
• Find Bar
• Toolbar
• Application

Syntax Highlighter

• Added syntax highlighting support for several new languages including R, Dart, Kotlin, MATLAB, Scala, VB .NET, Groovy, Pascal, Erlang, Elixir, Markdown, Haskell, Lua, TypeScript, CoffeeScript, D, Julia, Tcl, Verilog, VHDL, AWK, Common-Lisp, Clojure, Scheme, Racket, Makefile, LaTeX, BibTeX, reStructuredText, Textile, ColdFusion Markup, CFScript, Bourne Shell Script, Bash, C Shell, MetaFont, AppleScript, Assembly, YAML, Diff, and INI.
• Improved accuracy and performance in syntax highlighting for all supported languages.
• Enhanced support for nested syntax such as JavaScript and CSS inside HTML and PHP.
• Added support for multiple multiline and single-line quotes and inline comments.
• Added support for inline raw strings (#”…”#) in Swift.
• Fixed an issue where toggling multiline comments caused incorrect coloring.
• Improved regular expression detection in JavaScript.
• Improved accuracy in detecting attributes and string highlighting in HTML, XML, and PLIST files.

Editor

• Improved auto-closing behavior for HTML tags.
• Completely rewritten Toggle Comments feature for better accuracy and reliability.
• Improved Instance Highlighter to more accurately detect words separated by non-alphanumeric and underscore characters.
• Fixed a crash that could occur when toggling comments on an empty line.

Code Completions

• Improved performance and accuracy of word suggestions during editing.
• Added case-sensitive sorting — suggestions now prioritize uppercase or lowercase matches based on the typed text.
• Added automatic capture of document words for code completions when a file is opened.
• Improved logic to exclude completions that begin with numeric characters.

Key Bindings

• Added a new Key Bindings feature in Preferences to customize shortcuts for all main menu commands.
• Added ability to create and delete multiple key binding sets with personalized shortcuts.

Sidebar

• Added Open in New Editor command in the context menu to open files in a split editor.
• Added support for multi-selection in the sidebar to perform actions on multiple files at once.
• Added an option in Preferences to show hidden files.
• Improved handling of file operations — documents are now closed before moving to Trash or moving locations, including unsaved and untitled documents.

Find Bar

• Improved the Find Bar to highlight the nearest match to the cursor when activated.
• Added automatic highlighting of matches near the visible center when scrolling through large documents.
• Pressing Esc now closes the Find Bar when focused on search or replace fields.
• Improved overall design and responsiveness of the Find Bar.

Toolbar

• Improved encoding selection menus to automatically insert missing encodings when necessary.

Application

• General stability and performance improvements across the app.
• Various bug fixes and design refinements for a smoother editing experience.

jEditor 4.1

Released on 13 March 2021

A major refinement update featuring smarter syntax highlighting, customizable line number themes, sidebar filtering, and better dark mode readability.

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• Syntax Highlighter
• Editor
• Sidebar
• Find & Replace
• Themes
• Document
• Print
• Main Menu
• Toolbar
• Application

Syntax Highlighter

• Significantly improved syntax highlighting accuracy and performance for all supported languages.
• Added support for highlighting style and script elements inside HTML, including relevant code completions.
• Added support for nested document types — code completions now match the language inside each block (e.g., JavaScript within HTML or PHP).
• Improved detection and coloring for strings, attributes, and functions within HTML, XML, and PLIST files.
• Improved behavior when toggling comments to support nested document types.
• Fixed an issue where typing a hyphen (-) in HTML could cause incorrect coloring.
• Fixed an issue where syntax highlighting and completions occasionally failed for certain files.
• Improved highlighting of numbers, strings, and characters in plain text files.

Editor

• Improved behavior when copying and pasting file URLs — the file path is now pasted instead of opening the document.
• Added top and bottom spacing (insets) in the editor for better readability.
• Improved auto-closing of HTML tags.
• Fixed a crash when pasting at the end of the document if the replaced line was shorter than the pasted content.
• Fixed an issue where changing tab width could reset line height to the default value.
• Added instance highlighting to easily identify all occurrences of the selected symbol.
• Improved text background color adaptation — automatically switches between black and white for RTF, RTFD, DOC, and DOCX files when toggling dark background mode.

Sidebar

• Added a file filter bar at the bottom of the sidebar to quickly search files by name.
• Added the ability to change text size in the sidebar from Preferences.
• Added a new Open in New Tab option in the context menu.
• Improved user interface design of sidebar items.
• Improved file and folder renaming — now updates only affected paths and preserves open document states.
• Improved file tree updates for moved or renamed files with smooth animations.
• Fixed several visual issues including filename truncation and incorrect text colors in light and dark modes.

Find & Replace

• Pressing Esc now hides the Find Bar.
• Added Shift + Enter to highlight the previous match.
• Improved highlighting style for found matches with rounded corners.
• Find in Files now skips non-text files such as images, videos, archives, and apps.
• Find & Replace in Files automatically saves open but inactive documents when performing replacements.

Themes

• Added customization options for line numbers, including font, text color, background color, and selection color.
• Improved dark mode support for better readability in rich text documents.

Document

• Improved handling of reopening documents — existing documents are brought to the front instead of opening duplicates.
• Added undo and redo support for document attribute changes in rich text documents.
• Unrecognized programming files are now treated as plain text files for consistent editing experience.

Print

• Fixed an issue where print settings did not apply correctly for rich text documents.
• Fixed an issue where printing after exporting as PDF reopened the export panel instead of printing directly.

Toolbar

• Improved toolbar layout and alignment for modern macOS compatibility.
• Updated constraints to replace deprecated minSize and maxSize attributes.
• Fixed an issue where the line spacing label displayed incorrect color in dark mode.

Main Menu

• Changed shortcut for Delete Line to Command + Delete for consistency with macOS standards.
• Added a separate Save As… command with shortcut Shift + Command + S.

Application

• General performance improvements and bug fixes throughout the app.
• Improved dark mode readability for supported document types.

jEditor 4.0

Released on 13 May 2020

A major update introducing Split Editor, an advanced Find & Replace system, and broad improvements across editing, sidebar management, and performance.

Jump to a Section

• Syntax Highlighter
• Editor
• Split Editor
• Line Numbers
• Code Completions
• Themes
• Document
• Print
• Sidebar
• Find & Replace
• Toolbar
• Main Menu
• Application

Syntax Highlighter

• Improved highlighting of multiline comments and strings across all supported languages.
• Enhanced accuracy and stability of syntax parsing for complex file types.

Editor

• Enhanced Duplicate Line, Delete Line, and Move Line Up/Down to support multiple selections and maintain cursor position.
• Shift Left/Right indentation now works for rich text documents.
• Improved handling of font changes for selected lines and multiple font traits.
• Prevented unintended period insertion after double space in programming documents.
• Fixed crashes when adding lines in new PHP document.

Split Editor

• Added support for multiple split editors to view and edit different parts of the same document simultaneously.
• Open up to five split editors per window for side-by-side editing.

Line Numbers

• Improved rendering performance and accuracy of line numbers and rule thickness.
• Enhanced appearance updates when toggling “Use Dark Background” mode.
• Fixed an issue where dark mode settings were not applied on launch.

Code Completions

• The code completion window now automatically adjusts its size based on the number of suggestions.
• Improved reliability and contextual accuracy of completions.

Themes

• Fixed an issue where all default themes were marked as active.
• Added a new theme management menu in Preferences for adding and duplicating themes.
• Ensured theme names are always unique.
• Improved user interface in the theme list for better consistency.

Document

• Opening an existing document now brings it to front instead of reopening a duplicate.
• Improved encoding and theme handling when reloading or changing syntax styles.
• Added undo/redo support for rich text document attribute changes such as background color and page size.
• Fixed encoding persistence and crash scenarios when creating new files.

Print

• Print settings such as page size and document properties are now correctly saved and applied when printing.

Sidebar

• Added the ability to manage and reorder recent folders directly from the sidebar.
• Added the ability to restore multiple windows and folders from the last session.
• Improved sidebar responsiveness when renaming or moving files.
• Added “Open in New Tab” to the context menu.
• Fixed visual inconsistencies and color mismatches in Light and Dark Mode.

Find & Replace

• Introduced a new Find Bar with support for regular expressions and incremental search.
• Find & Replace now works with RTF, RTFD, DOC, and DOCX files, including unopened documents.
• Find Sidebar now displays match previews (up to 60 characters per line), shows progress, and lists total matches per file.
• Press ESC key to close the Find Bar easily.
• Improved “Go to Line” reliability on macOS 10.14 and earlier versions.

Toolbar

• Added a new “Preview” button to open the current document with the preferred application set in Preferences.
• Improved toolbar layout and consistency across Light and Dark appearances.
• Font size adjustments now only apply to selected text when multiple font families or traits exist.

Main Menu

• Updated New Window, New Tab, New File, and New Editor commands with refined shortcuts.
• Close Window and Close Tab shortcuts now update dynamically.
• Added “Save As…” command with shortcut ⇧⌘S.

Application

• Improved overall performance and stability across core components.
• Numerous refinements for a smoother editing experience.