JED (text editor)

JED
A screenshot of jed version 0.99.18/Unix
Original author(s)	John E. Davis
Stable release	0.99-19 / December 13, 2009;15 years ago (2009-12-13)
Repository	git.jedsoft.org/git/jed.git
Written in	C, S-Lang
Operating system	Linux, Unix, QNX, Windows, OpenVMS, BeOS, OS/2; DOS
Type	Text editor
License	GPL-2.0-or-later
Website	www.jedsoft.org/jed/

JED is a text editor that makes extensive use of the S-Lang programming library and language. It is highly cross-platform compatible; JED runs on Windows and all flavors of Linux and Unix. Older versions are available for DOS. It is also very lightweight (meaning very parsimonious in its use of system resources), which makes it an ideal editor for older systems, embedded systems, etc. JED's Emacs mode is one of the most faithful emulations available. ^[1]

Features

From the JED homepage:

• Color syntax highlighting on color terminals
• Code folding support
• Drop-down menus on all terminals and platforms
• Emulates editors Emacs, EDT, WordStar, Borland, Brief
• Extensible in the C-like language S-Lang, making the editor highly customizable
• Can read Texinfo (GNU info) files from within JED's info browser
• A variety of programming modes (with syntax highlighting) are available including C, C++, Fortran, TeX, HTML, Bourne shell (sh), Perl, Python, IDL, DIGITAL Command Language (DCL), nroff, more ^{[2] [3]}
• Edits TeX files with AUC-TeX style editing, BibTeX support
• Asynchronous subprocess support, allowing one to compile from within the editor
• Built-in support for the GPM mouse driver on Linux console
• Abbreviation and dynamic abbreviation modes
• 8-bit clean with mute/dead key support
• Rectangular cut/paste; regular expressions; incremental searches; search replace across multiple files; multiple windows; multiple buffers; shell modes; directory editor (dired); mail; rmail; ispell; and much, much more.

Variants:

• "jed" is the name of the console version, whether for the Windows command-box, or for any Unix-like console.
• "xjed" is a thin graphical user interface (GUI) wrapper for X Window System (X).
• "wjed" is a thin GUI wrapper for MS Windows.

References

1. "JED Editor Quick Reference". nsrc.org. Retrieved 2021-10-22.
2. "JED Modes Repository".
3. Kenlon, Seth (2020-12-01). "Try Jed as your Linux terminal text editor". Opensource.com . Archived from the original on 2025-08-27. Retrieved 2021-10-22.

External links

• Free and open-source software portal

• Official website
• http://www.paneura.com/~dino/wjed.html Maintains wjed (i.e. jed packaged in a Windows installer). Current recommended stable release package is jed_0.99.18-s2.0.6-i154.exe
• The traditional home for 3rd-party editing-modes and other S-lang extensions is at https://jedmodes.sourceforge.net/. Many of the files are bundled into the Debian package jed-extra.
• A separate, more recent set of tools, editing-modes and helpfiles is at the "RED Project", aka "Revisited jED". Most of these files are omni-platform, but Dino's ms-Windows version is specifically supported: easier font/size changes, batfile support, etc. That site also has a page detailing obtaining/compiling on various platforms, including instructions to get it working on Minix3.