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Editors for Java

Windows

EditPlus

EditPlus is my editor of choice on Windows. It's addictive not only for syntax highlighting and basic autocompletion, but you can assign commands to certain keyboard shortcuts and a special menu. This means you can create a keyboard shortcut to compile the current file and one to run the current file. (If you have the Java SDK installed on your computer.) One of the coolest features is that it supports remote editing of files over FTP. However, unlike nedit, it is shareware. In the case of EditPlus, that means you should purchase a license if you use the program for more than 30 days although the program will still run fine after 30 days.

UltraEdit

UltraEdit is another popular programmer's text editor, although I don't have any experience with it.

nedit

Just as you can use nedit in UNIX, it can be used on Windows. However, you will need to install cygwin or some other X Window server. nedit supports a client/server mode to facilitate remote file editing.

Standard UNIX Editors

You can run emacs, vi, pico, etc. over a terminal session (preferrably ssh). You can run graphical applications remotely as well by using Exceed or VNC. If you prefer to edit files on a Windows computer but like UNIX editors, take a look at cygwin. It's a UNIX operating environment for Windows. So you get the UNIX text editors and all sorts of other UNIX commands.

UNIX

nedit

I like to use nedit in UNIX environments primarily for syntax highlighting and because I like using the mouse. It is available on strauss and can easily be installed on an EE/CIS account. A common thing I've heard is that it "feels like Windows."

Standard UNIX Editors

Of course you can use emacs, xemacs, vi, pico, etc. Syntax highlighting can be enabled in xemacs, but it's an X Windows application so you won't be able to use it over SSH easily.

Integrated Development Environments (IDEs)

Borland JBuilder

The Personal Edition of Borland's JBuilder is free for personal use. According to a friend of mine, it's very easy to use.

Eclipse

Eclipse is a powerful IDE based on plug-ins. So there's a Java plug-in, C++ plug-in, AspectJ plug-in and many more. There is an amazing number of plug-ins to do even the smallest thing.

Sun ONE

Formerly called Forte, which had separate versions for Java and C++. There is a version of Forte supplied with the Core Java books. I can't find a personal or educational version on Sun's site though, so maybe they discontinued it. However, they have a link to an evaluation version. If you find a legal link to the full personal/educational edition, please send it to me.

BlueJ

I played around with this one a bit and I think it's very nice, especially for coursework. It's not really that complicated either. This IDE is probably small and simple enough to run on a Sun. It's only a couple of megabytes and is written in Java.

Other IDEs for Java

Even a simple Google search will return many more IDEs than what I've listed.