Geany is a nice text editor that can do a fair chunk of things proper IDEs can.

To add a terminal emulator to the messages pane you just need to install vte3.

To split the window, so that you can view two separate files simultaneously, you have to install a plug-in:

• geany/geany/blob/master/plugins/splitwindow.c

This seems to live in the big plug-in pack you can download too.

You can use the 'Send Selection to' function to send chunks of text to other programs for modification.

• Right-mouse > Format > Send Selection to > or
• Edit > Format > Send Selection to > or
• Ctrl+[n]

I have one setup that sends highlit text to sort when I press Ctrl+1, which alphabetises it. Nice for CSS and lists.

• https://wiki.geany.org/config/customcmds/sort-selection

Like external commands, you can use the single context action to send bits of text off to other places. There being only one is a bit limiting, but. I have mine set to send stuff to Firefox, which I use for URLs. To set:

1. Edit > Preferences > Tools
2. Find the 'Context action:' field

or

1. Edit ~/.config/geany/geany.conf
2. Find context_action_cmd= and add your command here.

I have firefox %s. If you want send stuff to DDG use firefox "https://duckduckgo.com/?t=ffab&q=%s", etc.

You can also have a different context action configured per file type. To do this:

1. Copy the files you want from /usr/share/geany/filedefs to ~/.config/geany/filedefs
2. Add your command to context_action_cmd=

I have https://developer.mozilla.org/en-GB/search?q=%s for CSS and HTML files, for example.

Some ones I find useful:

You can enable .editorconfig support with a plug-in:

• editorconfig/editorconfig-geany
• editorconfig geany search.

To add new filetypes to existing syntax highlighting styles:, you can add them to ~/.config/geany/filetype_extensions.conf. Currently mine looks like:

# Adds to defaults /usr/share/geany/filetype_extensions.conf
[Extensions]
Conf=*.ssa;*.ass;
 
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