8 Best Gedit Text Editor Plugins
Gedit is one of the most popular text editing tools on Linux. It’s easy on the eyes, simple to use and has a lot of useful features. As a result, many users turn to it for it their text needs.
Still, for as good as Gedit is, there’s always room for improvement. For this reason, we bring you the list of the nine best Gedit text editor plugins.
Install Gedit plugins
To use any of the Gedit plugins on this list, you’ll need first to set up the plugins folder.
Note: keep in mind that if you want multiple users to have access to these plugins, you must create the Gedit plugin folder for each user.
To create the necessary folder, launch a terminal window and use the mkdir command.
mkdir -p ~/.local/share/gedit
mkdir ~/.local/share/gedit/plugins/
With the folder set up, you’ll need to install some packages. These packages are critical, as you won’t be able to install the plugins on this list without them.
Open up a terminal and follow the instructions that correspond with the Linux OS that you use.
Ubuntu
sudo apt install git wget
Debian
sudo apt-get install git wget
Arch Linux
sudo pacman -S git wget
Fedora
sudo dnf install git wget -y
OpenSUSE
sudo zypper install git wget
Enable Gedit Plugins by navigating to:
Menu > Preferences > Plugins
In the Plugins menu, check the box next to the plugin to turn it on. When you’ve checked the box next to your plugin, close Gedit and re-open it.
1. Better Python Console
Better Python Console highly improves on the existing Python console in Gedit. It adds in lots of fixes, and overall makes the Python console a much more developer-friendly experience. Features include keyboard shortcut navigation, the ability to open more than one console at a time, and more.
To install the Better Python Console plugin in Gedit, open up a new terminal and do the following.
git clone https://github.com/JacekPliszka/gedit-betterpythonconsole.git cd gedit-betterpythonconsole mv * ~/.local/share/gedit/plugins/
2. Encrypt/Decrypt
Do you want to read GPG encrypted text files and messages in your Gedit session? If so, you’ll need to install and enable the Encrypt/Decrypt plugin.
Encrypt/Decrypt is very simple and allows users to descramble any document encoded with GPG quickly. To install it, do:
wget https://pietrobattiston.it/_media/gedit-crypto:gedit-plugin-crypto-0.5.tar.gz -O gedit-crypto.tar.gz tar -xzf gedit-crypto.tar.gz cd gedit-plugin-crypto-0.5 mv * ~/.local/share/gedit/plugins/
3. Ex-Mortis
Sick of accidentally closing Gedit tabs and windows by mistake? Install Ex-Mortis! It’s a plugin that lets you re-open and restore closed windows in an instant.
Ex-Mortis works with most versions of Gedit (version 3.14+) and is available on GitHub. To install it, run the following commands in a terminal window.
git clone https://github.com/jefferyto/gedit-ex-mortis.git cd ex-mortis mv * ~/.local/share/gedit/plugins/
4. Line Mover
Line Mover is a plugin for Gedit that allows users to move up and down selected lines with the press of the arrow keys. This kind of plugin is perfect for those that primarily use Gedit for programming.
Looking to install the Line Mover Plugin? Clone the code with git in a terminal.
git clone https://github.com/dariuskl/line-mover.git cd line-mover mv * ~/.local/share/gedit/plugins/
5. Pair Character Autocompletion
Are you always forgetting to close your brackets, quotes, and parentheses while writing code in Gedit? Check out the Pair character autocompletion plugin. It automatically closes any brackets, quotes, and parenthesis it detects, while you’re programming!
To get the Pair character autocompletion plugin working, do:
wget https://storage.googleapis.com/google-code-archive-downloads/v2/code.google.com/gedit-pair-char-autocomplete/gedit-pair-char-completion-1.0.6-gnome3.tar.gz tar -xzf gedit-pair-char-completion-1.0.6-gnome3.tar.gz cd gedit-pair-char-completion-1.0.6-gnome3 ./install.sh
6. Quick Switch
Gedit lets users open multiple text files in tabs in the same window. Thanks to the tab system, everything is neat and tidy. However, having to click through with the mouse is a pain.
If you’re a keyboard fan, letting go of it to use your mouse is annoying. To fix this issue, try the Quick Switch plugin. It enables quick tab switching through the keyboard.
Get the Quick Switch plugin by doing the following:
git clone https://github.com/Pogij/quickswitch.git cd quickswitch mv * ~/.local/share/gedit/plugins/
7. Whitespace Remover
Whitespace in code is a massive contributor to large file sizes in scripts and programs. For this reason, many development tools can scan code to remove it automatically.
In Gedit, you won’t be able to automatically remove whitespace from your code unless you install the Whitespace Remover program. To set it up, run the following operations in a terminal window.
git clone https://github.com/dinkel/gedit-whitespace-remover.git cd gedit-whitespace-remove mv whitespace_remover ~/.local/share/gedit/plugins/ mv whitespace_remover.plugin ~/.local/share/gedit/plugins/
8. Source Code Browser
Source Code Browser is a plugin that can vastly improve your coding experience in Gedit. Using it adds a new side-panel in Gedit that shows symbols, functions, classes, and variables for the document currently in use.
To get the Source Code Browser plugin working in the Gedit text editor on your Linux PC, open up a terminal and run the following commands.
git clone https://github.com/toobaz/gedit-source-code-browser.git cd gedit-source-code-browser mv * ~/.local/share/gedit/plugins/
Once active, load your code into Gedit as your normally would. Once the document is in use, click the Gedit menu button, then view and select side panel.
After the side panel is active, click on the arrow next to Documents to bring up the selection menu. Inside the selection menu, click on source code.
Conclusion
Gedit is an excellent text editing tool and has outstanding features that can put it in the running for one of the best bare-bones text editors on all of Linux. When you combine it with some of these excellent plugins, it has the potential to be even better!
