I normally use TextPad when editing text files, as it is very fast. But jEdit has several advantages. Like it´s built-in BeanShell support. It can be used to change a text programatically. Say, for instance, that you have a list of fields that you want to delete with an agent. You could just select all the field names in jEdit, and choose ”Utilities”, ”BeanShell”, ”Evaluate for selected lines” and enter:
"FIELD " + text + ":=@DeleteField;"
In TextPad, it could have been done by recording a macro, but I don’t think it is flexible enough.