Error in beanshell macro

About 3 years ago I wrote a beanshell macro to align code around a 
character. Like an = sign or a : . I was using Ubuntu but now I am using 
Mint 18. I just checked and the macro stills runs fine on Ubuntu 16.04. 
I guess today was the first time I had run the macro on Mint 18 and get 
the following error:

Sourced file: /home/jfb/.jedit/macros/MyMacros/Columnize_Code.bsh : 
Error in method invocation: Method insert( java.lang.String, boolean ) 
not found in class'org.gjt.sp.jedit.textarea.JEditTextArea' : at Line: 7 :
  in file: /home/jfb/.jedit/macros/MyMacros/Columnize_Code.bsh
  : textArea .insert ( " " , false )

Here is the whole function:

insertSpaces(numberOfSpaces)
{
   for (i = 0; i < numberOfSpaces; i++)
   {
     textArea.insert(" ", false);
   }
}

Of course there is more to the error message and I can post the whole 
thing if needed.

ubuntu 1604:
	jedit = 5.4.0
	java = Sun 1.8.0_121

mint 18:
	jedit = 5.4.0
	java = openjdk 1.8.0_131

The only difference seems to the the java versions. Is there a known 
problem with openjdk and jedit?  There doesn't seem to be any other 
issues with the openjdk that I see so I would like to avoid installing 
the Sun java is possible.

Regards, Jim

------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Check out the vibrant tech community on one of the world's most
engaging tech sites, Slashdot.org! http://sdm.link/slashdot
-- 
-----------------------------------------------
jEdit Users' List
[email protected]
https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/jedit-users