Geany, a small IDE for Ubuntu

Geany is a text editor with basic features of an integrated development environment using the GTK + Toolkit. It came up with the idea of ​​providing a small and fast IDE to the user. Its requirements for proper operation are few, it has only a few dependencies on other packages.

This editor supports many types of files. For me it is a excellent lightweight C IDE, but when you start using it it may seem a bit clunky compared to others. When you do to him you end up discovering that provides some very useful features that will make you produce your codes more comfortably. It is available for different operating systems, such as GNU / Linux, Mac OS X, and Microsoft Windows. Geany is distributed as free software under the GNU General Public License.

Geany Features

Next we are going to list some of its main characteristics:

• It allows you to manage large projects easily, something that others complicate a bit.
• It allows us to develop codes in different languages ​​such as: C, Java, Pascal, HTML, CSS, PHP and many others.
• By default it provides us with the autocomplete function. Which is something other editors like Sublime Text 3 it does not do without its corresponding plugin. With this functionality, we must be careful as it can lead us to make syntax errors that are difficult to find later. Being careful is more of a help than a problem.
• Something that is always appreciated in an editor is that plugins can be installed to add extra functionalities that help us develop our codes more productively.
• As in most editors, the code can be "folded" by sections to have an overview of everything we have written.
• It is a lightweight environment with a simple learning curve.
• Color our code according to the language we are using. This makes it easier for us to search for texts.
• Allows you to search for fragments of specific texts in all our code.
• It shows us the numbering of the lines of the document, for a better search.

Install Geany from your PPA

The first option we have to install this program in Ubuntu is by adding the corresponding PPA. To perform this installation you just have to open the Terminal and write the following command in it:

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:geany-dev/ppa

Once added, it is time to reload the repositories of our system with:

sudo apt update

At this point, we only need to install the program with this other command:

sudo apt install geany geany-plugins

Once the installation process is finished, we will have the program at our disposal. We will only have to look for it in the Dash of our system and start producing.

Install Geany from the Software Center

If you are one of those users who prefers to use the Software Center, you are going to be in luck. Geany is available to be installed without having to type anything in the terminal. You will only have to go to the Software Center and search for "Geany" in the search engine.

Configure Geany to compile the code written in C

As I have already said, this is a very useful IDE for making C codes, so I am going to leave some basic notes for those who want to test their codes in this program.

Once the program is installed, we will need to configure several parameters to compile the code written in C and then be able to execute the generated program. It is necessary to access the "Build" menu and access the "Set build commands" option. This option will show us a window where we have to enter the missing values.

Basic steps to follow to compile and run a program with Geany:

• The files must have the extension .c, Example: Ubunlog.c
• The files should be saved in the personal folder.
• By pressing the "F9" key we will compile and build the executable.
• When finished we will press "F5" to execute the program.

In case you need more information you can go to the «Help» menu that the program makes available to the user.

You can search new Geany versions for Ubuntu en launchpad. For more detailed information you can go to their website.