[ jEdit-users ] jEdit server

[Mike M. <ma...@um...>]

When I installed jEdit 4.3pre16 on my Vista PC, I told the install 
program to start the jEdit server each time I started Windows.  This 
seems to have led to several problems, which Shlomy Reinstein has helped 
me figure out offline--but he suggested bringing this issue back to the 
mailing list now.

One problem is that having the server running *appears* to prevent me 
from saving some of the changes in the Appearance portion of the Options 
menu.  Specifically, when both the server and jEdit itself are running, 
I can click on any of the choices under "Swing look and feel", and click 
"OK", then restart jEdit, the change has been forgotten--both the menu 
and jEdit itself have the original L&F.  Now I do understand that you 
have to restart jEdit for look and feel changes to take effect, but my 
point is that if the server is running, then changes do *not* take 
effect when I re-start the jEdit program itself.  If on the other hand 
the server is not running, then the changes work fine.

Another problem is that the server appears to prevent passwords from 
being remembered in the FTP plugin across Windows sessions (I'm using 
this plugin in SFTP mode).  That is, although I have checked the "Save 
Password" box in this dialog, it fails to remember the password if I log 
out of Windows (or re-boot Windows).  The "Save password" toggle does 
work if the server is not running.

Finally, I'd like to say a word or two about the server itself.  While 
there are individual "shortcuts" in the jEdit Start Menu folder for 
"jEdit", "Quit jEdit Server", and "Start jEdit Server", none of these 
links appears to be used in the Windows Startup folder; in fact, I never 
did figure out where the command resides that starts the server at 
Windows bootup or login.  It does not appear to be possible to turn off 
the server mode except by uninstalling and reinstalling jEdit.  I would 
have preferred to have some other means (probably a check box in the 
Options menu) to change this.  There's a thread on the old jEdit 
"community" site at http://community.jedit.org/?q=node/view/3505 about 
this; afaict, the second comment, from Robert Schwenn, is correct--at 
least about the uninstall/reinstall method, I didn't try the RegEdit 
method--and the third comment, by dwomack, does not help: using a 
different command line to start jEdit does *not* prevent the server from 
starting at Windows login.

Also, it would be nice (possibly impractical) to include 'jedit' in the 
name of the server process.  For a long time, I didn't think the jEdit 
server was running, until Shlomy told me the process was named 
'javaw.exe'--I had seen that process, but assumed it was just some 
generic Java process.

As a work-around to these problems, I've un- and re-installed jEdit, 
telling it not to start up the server.  Now jEdit seems to be behaving 
itself again.  I can submit a bug report, but I thought I'd post here 
first, in case there's something I'm mis-understanding.
-- 
    Mike Maxwell
    ma...@um...

    When he approached fundamental questions of astrophysics,
    Eddington did not try first to establish basic laws from
    which conclusions could be deduced (as Newton had done and
    as his rival James Jeans insisted on doing), rather he
    built a web of approximations whose results could be
    compared with nature.  --review by Owen Gingerich of
    Practical Mystic: Religion, Science, and A.S. Eddington