The Property File
Prev | Chapter 18. Implementing a Simple Plugin | Next

## The Property File

jEdit maintains a list of “properties”, which are name/value pairs used to store human-readable strings, user settings, and various other forms of meta-data. During startup, jEdit loads the default set of properties, followed by plugin properties stored in plugin JAR files, finally followed by user properties.

Some properties are used by the plugin API itself. Others are accessed by the plugin using methods in the `jEdit` class. Others are accessed by the scripts used by plugin packagers [3].

Property files contained in plugin JARs must end with the filename extension `.props`, and have a very simple syntax, which the following example illustrates:

    # Lines starting with '#' are ignored.
    name=value
    another.name=another value
    long.property=Long property value, split over \
        several lines
    escape.property=Newlines and tabs can be inserted \
        using the \t and \n escapes
    backslash.property=A backslash can be inserted by writing \\.

Now we look at a fragment from the `QuickNotepad.props` file [4] which contains properties for the QuickNotepad plugin. The first type of property data is information about the plugin itself; these are the only properties that must be specified in order for the plugin to load:

    # general plugin information
    plugin.QuickNotepadPlugin.activate=defer
    plugin.QuickNotepadPlugin.usePluginHome=true
    plugin.QuickNotepadPlugin.name=QuickNotepad
    plugin.QuickNotepadPlugin.author=John Gellene
    plugin.QuickNotepadPlugin.version=4.5
    plugin.QuickNotepadPlugin.docs=QuickNotepad.html
    # depends on jEdit 4.5
    plugin.QuickNotepadPlugin.depend.0=jedit 04.05.99.00
    plugin.QuickNotepadPlugin.description=A demo jEdit plugin that provides a notepad dockable.
    plugin.QuickNotepadPlugin.longdescription=description.html

These properties are each described in detail in the documentation for the `EditPlugin` class and do not require further discussion here.

Next in the file comes a property that sets the title of the plugin's dockable window. Dockable windows are discussed in detail in the section called “The dockables.xml Window Catalog”.

    # dockable window name
    quicknotepad.title=QuickNotepad

Next, we see menu item labels for the plugin's actions. All of these but the first are defined in `actions.xml` file, and that is because the dockable itself has its own actions. Actions are discussed further in the section called “The Actions Catalog”.

    # action labels
    # Dockable label
    quicknotepad.label=QuickNotepad
    # Additional strings extracted from the plugin java source
    quicknotepad.choose-file.label=Choose notepad file
    quicknotepad.save-file.label=Save notepad file
    quicknotepad.copy-to-buffer.label=Copy notepad to buffer

Next, the plugin's menu is defined. See the section called “The QuickNotepadPlugin Class”.

    # application menu items
    quicknotepad.menu.label=QuickNotepad
    quicknotepad.menu=quicknotepad - quicknotepad.choose-file \
      quicknotepad.save-file quicknotepad.copy-to-buffer

We have created a small toolbar as a component of QuickNotepad, so file names for the button icons follow:

    # plugin toolbar buttons
    quicknotepad.choose-file.icon=Open.png
    quicknotepad.save-file.icon=Save.png
    quicknotepad.copy-to-buffer.icon=Edit.png

The menu item labels corresponding to these icons will also serve as tooltip text.

Finally, the properties file set forth the labels and settings used by the option pane:

    # Option pane labels
    options.quicknotepad.label=QuickNotepad
    options.quicknotepad.file=File:
    options.quicknotepad.choose-file=Choose
    options.quicknotepad.choose-file.title=Choose a notepad file
    options.quicknotepad.choose-font=Font:
    options.quicknotepad.show-filepath.title=Display notepad file path

    # Initial default font settings
    options.quicknotepad.show-filepath=true
    options.quicknotepad.font=Monospaced
    options.quicknotepad.fontstyle=0
    options.quicknotepad.fontsize=14

    # Setting not defined but supplied for completeness
    options.quicknotepad.filepath=

### PropertySideKick

There is a SideKick for Property files, provided in the JavaSideKick plugin. This gives you a compact and sorted tree view of property files.

[3] See the Macros/Properties/Create Plugin Announcement macro for an example.

[4] Examine the actual file for a more complete example

Prev | Up | Next
The QuickNotepadPlugin Class | Home | The EditBus