Having Fun Programming in Linux with Geany

Sorry for not having any post last month. It's just because I'm getting busy with my workloads and some stuff to do with Ubuntu Malaysia Community. Now I'm back, and I would like to share with you this cool IDE for programming in Linux called Geany.

Geany is a light-weight cross-platform GTK+ text editor based on Scintilla with basic Integrated Development Environment (IDE) features. It is designed to have limited dependency on separate packages and short load times. It is available for a wide range of operating systems, such as Windows, Linux, BSD and Solaris. Among the supported programming languages are (according to the documentation) C, Java, JavaScript, PHP, HTML, CSS, Python, Perl and Pascal.

Geany is one of the more fully-featured editors on the Linux platform, as most Linux editors adopt a more minimalist philosophy. It is similar to Windows editors such as NoteTab or ConTEXT.

It is Free Software licensed under the terms of the GNU GPL.

~ Cited From Wikipedia ~

Previously, people use vim, nano or gedit to write codes for linux programming. Even thou there is not much problem in using all these text editors to write codes, productive people will need more things to have that will reduce their work and increase their output. While there are Anjuta, Eclipse, Netbeans and other complete IDE available, Geany come as a middle solution for people who don't wanna something crowded like full IDE but also need something more than a simple text editor.

To install Geany on your Ubuntu, you can simply use Synaptic Package Manager and search for "geany" or run this line on your Terminal:

$ sudo apt-get install geany

And this is what you can expect to get from Geany:

• Code Folding - To stay focus within a complex codes, Code folding comes handy to hide big chunks of code and leave only what I'm working on right now.
• saving the session - Geany can load files from the last session. Unfortunately, it doesn't remember where the cursor was within the file or which parts of code were folded.
• sidebar - Before Geany, coders using vim or nano don't use these additional bars. This one is actually quite helpful. It lists all important code elements (functions, classes, variables, etc.) sorted in alphabetical order and lets us quickly jump to them. Also, we can right-click on a function name where it's used and quickly jump to a line when this function is declared (if it's declared in some file that's been opened, off course).
• all standard features anybody would expect - syntax highlighting, code completion, tabs, auto indentation (either tabs or spaces), (un)commenting and decreasing/increasing indentation of multiple lines.
• support for many languages - I counted 26 supported filetypes.
• build system - it can compile, build, make all, make custom target, make object and execute.
• multiple tiny bells and whistles, such as a color picker or the ability to insert predefined comments (for example description of a function).
• and most of all - it doesn't do anything that annoys me. It's quite common for smallish applications to behave in a non-standard way.

You can also check out Geany website for more infos. That's all for now... Wish you a Happy Coding!!