Geany

Description

Geany is a small, free text editor that makes use of Scintilla and GTK+, along with basic IDE features. It offers support for a wide range of programming and markup languages (C++, C, Java, Python, PHP, HTML, CSS, etc.).

Its interface is similar to the editors designed for Microsoft Windows such as Notepad++ or Programmer's Notepad while it has the advantage of being ported to many OS such as Microsoft Windows, macOS, Linux and BSD.

You can download the Geany version for other operating systems from the "Third Party Packages" page on the Geany website.

Geany Review

Geany is a lightweight, quick, and responsive Integrated Development Environment (IDE). It was designed to be speedy and easy to use, with only a few dependencies, independent from specialized Desktop Environments like KDE and GNOME. Geany only needs the GTK runtime libraries to function. If you’ve got that together, you’re not likely to have any problems with it.

Essential Features

- Syntax highlighting

- Code folding

- Symbol name auto-complete

- Construct and complete/snippets

- Auto-close XML and HTML tags

- Call tips

- Many supported file types

- Symbol lists

- Code navigation

- Build system to compile and execute code

- Simple project management

- Plug-in interface

Geany runs on Linux, Windows and macOS, as well as FreeBSD, NetBSD and OpenBSD. You should be able to use this editor on any platform supported by GTK libraries. The code is GNU GPL licensed, so you can use it as you like and customize it.

Geany supports many programming languages and has the basic IDE features, such as line numbering and syntax highlighting. When you start it up (and it opens fast!), you’ll be presented with a tidy, no-frills interface and plenty of space to work. All compiler messages appear in the box at the bottom, and this is indispensable for debugging code. From there, you can open new files and choose the file type for the language you want to use. And away you go.

Light is Nice

In addition to being lightweight, Geany is powerful, non-interruptive, and displays everything you need handily. Syntax highlighting, line numbers, automatic brace closing, parenthesis, and more, all do precisely what you expect them to with no unpleasant surprises.

If you’re an experienced programmer, you know it’s best when you can fall into habits that are routine and comfortable. You want an IDE that doesn’t switch things up on you. Geany is very stable, reliable, and predictable.

Compiling your code and running it couldn’t be easier. Just click a button and it compiles everything for you, click another and your creation will run.

What you get after pressing ‘run’ depends on what you’ve written. If the program you’ve written is only a simple Java creature, run it, and the output will come through your terminal. Just press enter once and it will exit. This lean and mean IDE will keep everything as straightforward and tidy as possible, just like Geany itself.