The Make plugin is, simply put, used to build projects, but unlike Console, Make is very buildfile-centric. It recognizes several different build systems out of the box and provides a graphical interface for building a project by selecting one of its targets. Simply open up ProjectViewer, right-click on the buildfile (or directory/project root containing one), mouse over the build system's menu item, and select which task you want to run.

In addition, an Output panel is provided for displaying the results of a build, and can be opened by going to Plugins->Make->Show Output Panel. If a build failed, then the errors will be displayed in the Error List, which can be found at Plugins->ErrorList->Error List.

The first time you right-click on a buildfile or directory containing one, Make will need to parse its available targets. Afterwards, Make caches the results so that subsequent right-clicks are faster. If you modify the buildfile and need it to display the changes, either restart jEdit or simply click on the 'Reload Targets' option at the bottom of the context menu.

Make supports the following build systems out of the box:

If you don't see your favorite build system listed here, then you can request a new one be added by going to jEdit's Sourceforge development page and opening a Plugin Request tracker item. If you're too impatient, however, Make is fully extensible, and it's easy to write a new plugin to provide additional build systems. In the plugin source, the key files to look at are services.xml, make.Buildfile, and make.BuildfileProvider.