Exactly how jEdit is started depends on the operating system; on Unix systems, usually you would run the “jedit” command at the command line, or select jEdit from a menu; on Windows, you might use the jEditLauncher package, which is documented in the section called “Starting jEdit on Windows”.

If jEdit is started while another copy is already running, control is transferred to the running copy, and a second instance is not loaded. This saves time and memory if jEdit is started multiple times. Communication between instances of jEdit is implemented using TCP/IP sockets; the initial instance is known as the server, and subsequent invocations are clients.

If the -background command line switch is specified, jEdit will continue running and waiting for client requests even after all editor windows are closed. When run in background mode, you can open and close jEdit any number of times, only having to wait for it to start the first time. The downside of this is that jEdit will continue to consume memory when no windows are open.

For more information about command line switches that control the server feature, see the section called “Command Line Usage”. Note that if you are using jEditLauncher to start jEdit on Windows, this switch cannot be specified on the MS-DOS prompt command line when starting jEdit; it must be set as described in the section called “Starting jEdit”.

Unlike other applications, jEdit automatically loads any files that were open last time in was used, so you can get back to work immediately, without having to find the files you are working on first. This feature can be disabled in the Loading and Saving pane of the Utilities>Global Options dialog box; see the section called “The Global Options Dialog Box”.