Geany

2014-08-01
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Geany logo

Software > Text editors >

(on Wikipedia)
Chocolatey: geany
https://www.geany.org/

Geany is a GTK2 (GUI) text editor which is light and featureful. Here is a sampling of features from their about page:

  • Syntax highlighting
  • Code folding
  • Symbol name auto-completion
  • Construct completion/snippets
  • Auto-closing of XML and HTML tags

  • Call tips

This is a editor that does such magical things as use control up/down to skip paragraphs. I love it for in-page bookmarking, code folding, search-replace, escaped-replaces and regular expressions for selections, documents and groups of documents.

  • The package geany-plugins is important..

  • I also (sometimes) use Leafpad.



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Table of Contents [hide]

2017-10-05 - 1.31 ∞

Installed using Chocolatey.

2016-03-28 - 1.25 ∞

GTK 2.24.20, GLib 2.36.4

On Slackware 14.1, I installed it with slpkg:

\slpkg  -s sbo  geany

2016-03-26 - 1.23.1 ∞

geany 1.23.1 (built on May 19 2013 with GTK 2.24.18, GLib 2.37.0)

On Lubuntu, this was installed using package management.

I had used this quite extensively.

Issues ∞

  • I want home / end to go to the start/end of the display line and to use alt-home / alt-end to go to the true start/end of the line.

    • I can't do that because there is no keybinding for "go to start of display line". It's alt-home by default.
    • 2017-11-17 - I recently discovered this keybinding preference. I wonder when it got put in, or if I just never saw it..

early to mid-2010 - (version not recorded) ∞

geany-screenshot.png

(more screenshots)

As part of my exploration into The Chain of Trust with all the tools I use, I've been disconnecting myself from programs which have a large number of dependencies. I was originally very interested.. ok I'll admit that I had a piece of shit computer and that it was mandatory that I find light programs. So I did just that! I ended up needing to flee from bloated monstrosities like KDE, and consideration of dependencies was just the next step.

So here I was, going through my text editor notes, deciding that I'd try once more to find a text editor which suited me. I need crazy things like syntax highlighting, tabbed editing and code folding. I actually did find something nice I had stuck on Windows but I didn't remember its name so I decided to check out Geany. I'm glad I did!

I did later check out their dark theme, and it's just fine. I also did quite a lot of other customization and use some of their plugins too..

2010-04-11 - 0.18.1 ∞

WOW!!

ZOMG, I found a decent Linux GUI text editor! ∞

As part of my exploration into the chain of trust with all the tools I use, I’ve been disconnecting myself from programs which have a large number of dependencies. I was originally very interested.. ok I’ll admit that I had a piece of shit computer and that it was mandatory that I find light programs. So I did just that! I ended up needing to flee from bloated monstrosities like KDE, and consideration of dependencies was just the next step.

So here I was, going through my text editor notes, deciding that I’d try once more to find a text editor which suited me. I need crazy things like syntax highlighting, tabbed editing and code folding. I actually did find something nice I had stuck on Windows but I didn’t remember its name so I decided to check out Geany. I’m glad I did!

Geany is a GTK2 (GUI) text editor which is light and featureful. Here is a sampling of features from the Geany 'About' page.

  • Syntax highlighting
  • Code folding
  • Symbol name auto-completion
  • Construct completion/snippets
  • Auto-closing of XML and HTML tags
  • Call tips
  • Many supported filetypes including C, Java, PHP, HTML, Python, Perl, Pascal
  • Symbol lists
  • Code navigation
  • Build system to compile and execute your code
  • Simple project management

  • Plugin interface

“Supported filetypes” means syntax highlighting at the least, and it looks like it’ll mean a bunch of other stuff. Ruby is in their list, yay!

I also found a dark colour scheme which I’ll definitely have to check out next.

There is a plugin system, and already there are a number of plugins which look interesting. Of note there is a tasks plugin included in their “addons” plugin which collects TODO and FIXME tags into a navigable list. I’ll with that too.

So I’m quite happy so far, even though I haven’t really started using this program yet. I’ll report back with anything else that’s interesting. I’m hoping that this can become my full-time editor of choice. Heck, it launches fast enough that it might replace stuff like mousepad/leafpad. On that note, I checked out Beaver and I think it’s a nice little editor.

Usage and troubleshooting ∞

[unsolved] - Custom Filetypes ∞

I ended up doing some work for this for Mythryl. See Geany Mythryl syntax highlighting.

/usr/share/geany/filetypes.*
/usr/share/geany/filetypes.conf

.. uh, I have no clue.

Geany spell checking ∞

[still unsolved] Geany spell checking on Windows ∞

Fucked if I understand.. am I supposed to install something else to make Hunspell work?

other languages

Get the .dic and .aff files from https://cgit.freedesktop.org/libreoffice/dictionaries/tree/en by visiting the link and clicking "plain" link, e.g. 

"blob: 8399e7ca1906e0f89f0fe4da5a05b67f4ccf787f (plain)"

You will get a direct URL.

  • TODO - install something or other Enchant

    • Nothing has an actual executable.
  • Launch Geany
  • Tools > Plugin Manager
  • [x] Spell Check
  • Select "Spell Check" and click [Preferences]
  • Behavior > Directory to look for dictionary files [icon]

  • TODO - point it at the directory you specified, e.g. C:\Program Files\Geany dictionaries

    • Without the hunspell sub-directory.

  • I can't figure it out: The Enchant library couldn't be initialized

The Enchant library couldn't be initialized ∞

The Enchant library couldn't be initialized (unknown error (maybe the chosen language is not available)).

Make sure you have installed hunspell [ 3 ] on Wikipedia ( https://github.com/hunspell/hunspell/releases)

I can't figure this out.

[unsolved] - Geany spell checking on Windows ∞

Explored 2017-10-05 - 1.31

  • Chocolatey doesn't have proper support for installing spell checking or geany's plugins.

  • Babun / Cygwin has Geany listed, and it can get installed, but it doesn't work.

Spell checking does not come with Geany. It is included in a plugins package (with other plugins).

Here's the solution:

  • Install Geany.

    • I used Chocolatey. As admin:
      choco install geany

  • Get geany-plugins Win32 Installer

    • Make sure it's the same version as your installed geany. I don't know what would happen if they are out of sync.

  • Install the plugins to the same directory as Geany.

    • The default the installer suggests was fine for me. For me, that was:
      C:\Program Files (x86)\Geany

  • Download the English dictionaries for Apache OpenOffice

  • Move that downloaded file to the same directory as Geany.

    • For me, that was:
      C:\Program Files (x86)\Geany
  • Launch Geany
  • Tools > Plugin Manager
  • Find Spell Check
  • Click the checkbox to its left. You will get an error message, just close it.
  • Click Spell Check's [Preferences] at the bottom.
  • At the bottom, Directory to look for dictionary files:

  • .. and it doesn't work, nevermind.

Notes:

Geany spell checking on Linux ∞

2010-04-11 - 0.18.1 on Unity Linux, updated 2010-02-15

https://plugins.geany.org/geany-plugins/

su

smart install geany-devel lib64enchant-devel intltool
wget plugins.geany.org/geany-plugins/geany-plugins-0.18.tar.bz2
unc geany-plugins-0.18.tar.bz2
./configure
make
make install

Then go to Tools > Plugin Manager and select what you want to enable, and configure them too.

Does en_GB spell checking, yay!

.. uh, and en_CA .. lolwut?

The "Addons" plugin breaks the terminal. When viewing a .rb (Ruby) document, terminal output will scroll down off the bottom of the window. Tabbing to another document reveals the information as expected. Disabling the Addons plugin makes everything work fine again.

Also, I tried [unsolved] - Custom Filetypes

error saving file - error renaming temporary file: input/output error ∞

2020-10-18 - 1.35 on Windows 10

Seen when using remote storage.
Seen when using remote storage.

  • Edit > Preferences

    • Various >
      -- [x] gio_unsafe_save_backup
      -- [_] use_atomic_file_saving
      -- [x] use_gio_unsafe_file_saving

See https://sourceforge.net/p/geany/bugs/643/

Spoiler

This look like a problem in GIO mishandling the VB share (or simply getting into trouble discovering the backend FS is actually MS-Windows, and then that it can't replace a file currently opened). Geany 0.21 adds an option (in the Various pref tab) named "use_gio_unsafe_file_saving" that allows to choose whether to use GIO for "unsafe" file saving (e.g. without disk space exhaustion recovery). Please try unchecking it.

Actually, there are 3 ways Geany can save a file (described roughly below):

1) the "unsafe" ways (may loose data in case write fails in the middle):

1.1) Direct overwrite of the data (use_atomic_file_saving=false, use_gio_unsafe_file_saving=false). This method is quite efficient, but cannot write on remote media and is "unsafe" as described above;

1.2) The GIO way, depends on the GIO backend (use_atomic_file_saving=false, use_gio_unsafe_file_saving=true). This method works on remote media, may be efficient (or not, depends on the backend) and allows for backup (gio_unsafe_save_backup=true). However, it tries to do some things to be more "safe" about data loss (though this isn't really working) and may even lead to write problems in some situation, like the discussed one;

2) the "safe" way (should never loose data) using g_file_set_contents() (use_atomic_file_saving=true). This method should handle disk space exhaustion gracefully, but looses files attributes (like permissions, executable bit, etc.).

As you see, each method has its own drawbacks; and we unfortunately don't know of a perfect solution. For now, we allow the user to configure file saving the way that better fits his/her needs, hoping it's enough.

Played with for 2017-10-05 - 1.31

(Cygwin, Babun)

Yes, it's possible! I made the following:

Geany script 

geany() {
  string=
  for file in $*; do
    if  [ -L "$file" ]; then
      string=${string}' '\"$( \cygpath  --dos  "$file" )\"
    else
      string=${string}' '\"$file\"
    fi
  done
  \cygstart  '/c/Program Files (x86)/Geany/bin/geany.exe'  "$string" &
}

Seen 2016-04-17 - 1.23.1 on Windows 10 Home.

This problem is documented in Windows 10 symlinks and is unsolved.

Alternatives ∞

(none, really)

Footnotes

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