I tried all these snazzy IDE’s, but Geany remains the development editor of my choice. It is lightweight, really fast and never in your way. Especially the integrated terminal is a killer feature.

Unfortunately the Software Centre for Ubuntu 14.04 offers only version 1.23.1. The terminal in this version seems to have serious issues with Unity, breaking down frequently and not responding to the right-click commands. I dare to say “Unity” because the very same version works well on Mint 17.1/Cinnamon.

1 - Get rid of buggy Geany

sudo apt-get purge geany

2 - Add geany-dev ppa and pull latest stable version:

sudo apt-add-repository ppa:geany-dev/ppa
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install geany

Plugins:

  • use sudo apt-get install geany-plugins for bulk install
  • use apt-cache search geany for a list for available plugins. Note that this list might not be complete (see example below)
  • use sudo apt-get install geany-plugin-<plugin name> for dedicated install

I noticed that the markdown plugin wasn’t visible in the bulk-plugin list for this version. Whatever the reasons are for this, it works well with the current version (1.2.4) and I was able to force-install it manually.

# List available plugins
apt-cache search geany

...

# Uh, no markdown listed! - install anyway
sudo apt-get install geany-plugin-markdown

MISC:

Adjust “External open” command for the FileBrowser and the excellent TreeBrowser plugin. Tell Geany to use Nautilus instead of Explorer(!).

  • Edit > Plugin Preferences:
  • Set “External open” command to: nautilus "%d"