rootninja

In the past i’ve used Eclipse, and that behemoth was a nightmare. The beast is a memory hog and just too bloated for my taste. Using plugins for php and python just make matters worse. I’ve always fallen back to vi (Vim) because of the severe headaches eclipse has caused me. hmm, I should sue…

anyway, here’s the top reasons why Geany meets my criteria for the best code editor in the world, no the universe, no… the super multiverse, cubed!

Standard code editing features

All the normal stuff you absolutely expect – syntax highlighting, code completion, indenting, tabs, spacing, etc. Cutting, pasting, undo/redo, etc. It all works as you would expect; no non-standard features to drive you nuts here. And oh how do I hate tabs, especially with python. I like four spaces, and it’s easy to set up the editor to replace tabs with spaces or spaces with tabs, and to specify how many spaces are in a ‘tab’. Auto indent is just perfect for python.

Code Folding

I like being able to hide inner loops so I can look at the big picture. It’s also nice to be able to look at a large class with all the methods folded up, sometimes it’s just a nice reminder of which ones i’m done working on and which ones still need editing. It’s especially handy if you’re going back and forth in the editor between main and a specific class.

Simple sidebar

The sidebar lists all your classes, functions, and variables. You can jump right to where they’re used in your code too. Very handy stuff.

Build from the editor

You can compile, make, and execute your code from right inside the editor. No complex setup needed, depending on your Linux distro, it probably works right out of the box too!

Terminal

A terminal window inside the editor can come in handy, and if not, like the sidebars and other features, you can easily turn it off in preferences. You can also change the terminal that starts up. The default is xterm, but if you like aterm or some other fancy window, you can use that with a simple flick of the wrist. (in the preferences window)

There is one drawback, and that is you still have to write the code yourself. There’s no auto-complete-my-whole-program, so it’s not perfect, but it is the best editor out there.