EmEditor v24.0.0 released (including technical review)

Today, we are releasing EmEditor v24.0.0.

In the previous version, v23.1, we introduced how to use generative AI by calling OpenAI‘s API from macros. Typically, text is used as an argument for invoking generative AI, which suggests a high affinity between text editors and generative AI. When writing documents in a text editor, one of the purposes of using generative AI is to proofread the document. In this use case, you would want to easily compare the document before and after proofreading to easily decide which parts of the changed text to keep or discard. In this version, we added a “Copy to Other” command to the context menu that appears when right-clicking on the changed text while comparing documents in a split window. Selecting this will copy the changed part to the other document being compared. If you want to copy all changes in the document at once, click the “Copy All to Other” button newly added at the title part of the split window.

After the comparison is done, you may want to close unnecessary documents and keep only the needed ones. In such cases, you can now close only the document in the currently active pane by clicking the newly added [X (Close)] button or pressing Ctrl+W or Ctrl+F4.

We further developed the library’s ChatOpenAI.jsee macro example and added it to EmEditor by default under the name AI.jsee. By using the AI macro, you can perform proofreading, summarization, translation, generate images, or ask questions to AI for selected text or the entire document. When you run this macro for the first time, you will be prompted to enter your OpenAI API key. If you are logged into OpenAI, you can get your secrect OpenAI API key by visiting here. To skip entering this key in the future, please set the environment variable OPENAI_API_KEY.

In this version, we have also responded to many requests from our customers.

1. Onigmo regular expressions now support the \Q...\E syntax. This syntax allows you to disable regular expression metacharacters without needing to escape them. For example, to search for the string [a.c], the conventional regular expression would require you to escape the metacharacters "[", ".", "]" with backslashes, \[a\.c\]. In the new version, you can simply write \Q[a.c]\E, eliminating the need to escape metacharacters. Note that Boost‘s Regex has supported the \Q...\E syntax for some time.

2. We added an option to the Find Next and Find Previous commands that only matches non-overlapping strings. For example, if you search for “AA” in the string “AAAAA”, initially only the first four characters, “AAAA”, are highlighted. When you execute the Find Next (F3) command, the search position shifts one character at a time, allowing you to search through all the “AA” pairs. With this version, setting the Find only non-overlapping strings in Find Next/Previous checkbox in the Advanced dialog box makes the command operate in a way that only non-overlapping strings match, ending the search leaving the last “A” unsearched, thus aligning the highlight with the search position.

3. In EmEditor, URI and email addresses are highlighted, and we frequently receive requests to extract just those parts. In previous versions, this could be done by specifying an appropriate regular expression in the Find dialog and selecting Extract, but many of our customers are not familiar with regular expressions. In this version, you can easily extract just the URIs or email addresses by specifying options in the Extract Frequent Strings command.

4. When opening a CSV in EmEditor, the delimiter positions are automatically adjusted by default. However, very long cells can cause the column width to become very wide, making the entire CSV hard to view. In this version, we added a Maximum column width textbox to the CSV Options page of the Customize dialog, allowing you to specify the maximum column width.

5. In the previous version, EmEditor started displaying a warning message when a file opened in it was deleted by another application. In this version, you can choose whether or not to display the warning message. It can be specified on the File page of the Configuration Properties via the Prompt if file deleted checkbox.

6. Some customers have reported slow startup times for EmEditor on recent versions of Windows 11. This is primarily due to the retrieval of the Windows Clipboard History during startup. The new version has this option disabled by default, but it can be enabled on the Clipboard page of the Customize dialog.

7. The new version disables the Switch to no wrap option in the Compare Files wizard by default.

Furthermore, in this version, we have significantly optimized commands like Split a File, Combine Files, Increase Line Indent, Decrease Line Indent, achieving a speed increase of 27 to 124 times compared to v23.1, according to our tests.

As announced by Makoto Emura on his blog, starting from this version, a warning message may appear if you use EmEditor Professional on more devices than allowed by the EULA (end-user license agreement). To maintain our lower license fees and ensure fairness among customers who have purchased multiple licenses, please purchase enough licenses to follow the terms of the license.

Uninstalling EmEditor unregisters the device, allowing you to install it on a different device. You can view your registered devices here. We have unregistered all devices when v24.0.0 was released so that old devices will be unregistered. When you use EmEditor, the device will automatically be registered.

I hope you like EmEditor, whether you use the Professional or Free version. Please contact us or write in forums if you have any questions, feature requests, or any ideas in the future.

Thank you for using EmEditor!
— Yutaka Emura

Please see EmEditor v24.0 New Features for details and screenshots.

If you use the Desktop Installer version, you can select Check for Updates on the Help menu to download the newest version. If this method fails, please download the newest version, and run the downloaded installer. If you use the Desktop portable version, you can go to the Download page to download the newest version. The Store App versions can be updated through Microsoft Store (64-bit or 32-bit) after a few days.