Text editor

	Platforms	Pros	Cons
Atom	Cross	built-in markdown file preview
Bluefish	Cross	remote file, project support	crash when I try Print->Preview
Brackets	Cross	good for web designer
Emacs	Cross	split the buffers
Gedit	Cross	print preview (incorrect when landscape but pdf is right)	no code folding
Geany	Cross	print preview; Terminal; split window
IntelliJ IDEA	Cross
Notepad++	Win	print line numbers, Right-click menu	R syntax highlight not work with most themes
Qt Creator	Cross	split a window (even same file)
RStudio	Cross	folding, best IDE for R coding	not support drag and drop a file but SendTo works
Sublime	Cross
vi	Cross
Visual Studio Code	Cross	Integrated Terminal, Markdown preview	Should not include minimap function

HTML editors: see here.

Atom

• Markdown preview feature is OK but it cannot export to pdf or HTML.
• pandoc conversion to html/PDF is not good; scripts part has no rectangle, tables have no separate lines.

Packages

To install a new package, go to Preferences -> Install -> type the package name and hit ENTER.

To remove a package, just delete the related folder.

rm -rf ~/.atom/packages/markdown-toc

• Markdown Preview Enhanced. It allows to view in browser (html) or export to PDF. Use r instead of R for R language syntax highlight. Another nice feature is the scrollings of the markdown file and preview are together.
• Markdown TOC. It messes up the # sign in script blocks :( So I switch to RStudio which has a good support to create the TOC (YAML header).

Emacs

• Install on Ubuntu. sudo apt install emacs
• Keyboard shortcuts
  • Save file: ctrl + x, ctrl + s
  • Quit: ctrl + x, ctrl + c
  • Forward search/backward search: ctrl + s, ctrl + r
• Disabling Backup and Auto-save in Emacs and Change theme

$ cat ~/.emacs
;disable backup
(setq backup-inhibited t)
;disable auto save
(setq auto-save-default nil)
(load-theme 'manoj-dark)

Gedit

• To create a new tab, Ctrl + t.
• Preferences
  • View: display line numbers, highlight current line
  • Font and colors: change to font size 14, color scheme = Cobalt
  • Plugins: External Tools
• To split a screen, Do "Documents -> New Tab Group. No extra plugin is needed to download. I am using version 3.10.4 from Ubuntu 14.04.
• Restore tabs plugin. It works on my gedit 3.4 (ubuntu 12.04). Follow the instruction there exactly.
• Source code browser plugin. This makes gedit a good IDE for developing C++/Java code since the left panel can show symbols. Click F9 to show the side panel.
• Darkmate theme.

cd /usr/share/gtksourceview-3.0/styles
sudo gedit darkermate.xml

gedit > Edit > preferences > font and colors > color scheme.

Launch from a command line

gksu gedit XXXX

Plugins

• Gedit has no built-in options to show special characters except through gedit-plugins (sudo apt-get install gedit-plugins). See Draw Spaces.
• How do I open a Terminal window in gEdit?
  1. sudo apt-get install gedit-plugins
  2. Edit -> Preferences -> Plugins -> Embedded terminal
  3. View -> Bottom panel

Geany

Geany can be used to run a bash script file line by line. See Debugging_Scripts.

Display special characters

Geany has a way to show special characters (Tabs/LF/CR). Edit > Preferences > Display > Tick, Show whitespace (tabs) & Show Line endings(CR/LF).

For DOS text file, the line ending is CR+LF.

For Unix text file, the line ending is LF.

Font size

Users can use either one of the following methods

1. Edit -> Preferences -> Interface -> Fonts to adjust the font size.
2. Keyboard bindings: Ctrl + Shift + '+' to increase the font size or Ctrl + '-' to decrease the font size. This does not affect the font size in Preferences.

Printing

The font size in Preferences affects the printing. The font size changed by using the keyboard bindings does not affect printing.

Remove vertical line

Edit -> Preferences -> Editor -> Display -> Uncheck Long line marker.

Visual Studio Code

10 Essential Productivity Tips for Visual Studio Code

Sublime

Install it from the Snap Store on Linux

My settings file which takes care of the scheme, font size and word wrap.

{
	"color_scheme": "Packages/Color Scheme - Default/Monokai.sublime-color-scheme",
	"font_size": 16,
	"open_files_in_new_window": false,
	"word_wrap": true,
	"theme": "Default.sublime-theme"
}

Theme

Write or Code Faster in Your Linux Text Editor With Custom Themes