# jEdit 2.6 User's Guide

Next, Prev

## Chapter 3. Basic Features

# Opening Files

There are various ways to open a file for editing. File>Open File (keyboard equivalent: Control-O) pops up a dialog box allowing you to browse the file system and select a file to open. For a detailed treatment of this dialog box, see the section called The VFS Browser in Chapter 8. jEdit remembers the last few edited files; they listed in the File>Recent Files menu. The File>Current Directory menu lists all files in the current buffer's directory.

Files that you do not have write access to are automatically opened read only. Files can also be forced to open read only from the command line by specifying the `-readonly` option.

Figure 3-3. The Open File dialog box

jEdit calls open files buffers. The buffer tabs that run along the top of each text area can be used to switch between buffers. Another way to switch buffers is to use the various items in the View menu; the Current Buffer submenu, and the Go to Previous Buffer, Go to Next Buffer and Go to Last Edited Buffer commands. All of these are self-explanatory, except for the latter, which selects the buffer that was being edited before you switched to the current one.

> Tip: The buffer switching tabs can take up a lot of room and get cumbersome if you have many buffers open. If this bothers you, they can be disabled in the General pane of the Utilities>Global Options dialog box.

Home, Up
Prev: Basic Features
Next: Creating New Files