gedit
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# Customization

To change the application settings, select Preferences… from the Settings menu. This opens the Preferences dialog.

You can make gedit your default editor. The default editor will start when a document opens, you need to edit, by another application. To make `gedit` your default editor, enter export EDITOR='gedit' in the terminal. This will only change your system settings until you reboot again. To make the change permanent, edit your `.bash_profile`, if you are using `bash`. Add the line "export EDITOR='gedit'" to `.bash_profile`. If you are using another shell, you need to find out what file to change and change the environment variable $EDITOR to gedit.

## General

Figure 9. The Preferences Dialog with the General Tab Highlighted

`Appearance`

  This section contains:

  - Show Statusbar — This option determines whether the status bar at the bottom of the Main Window is shown or hidden. The status bar gives you a brief description of the various menu items or messages about what `gedit` is currently doing.

  - Set toolbar according to system settings — This option displays the toolbar with the system settings for GNOME. You can change the system settings for the toolbar in the `Control Center`. To change the system settings for GNOME, start the `Control Center`by selecting GNOME Control Center from the Settings submenu of the Main Menu. Then select the Applications submenu from the User Interface menu.

  - Set toolbar to Icons only — This option displays the toolbar with just the icons. There is no text under each icon to tell you what it does. The option overrides whatever you have selected for the toolbar behavior in the `Control Center`.

  - Set toolbar to Icons with text — This option displays the toolbar with the explanatory text under each icon. The option overrides whatever you have selected for the toolbar behavior in the `Control Center`.

`Editor Behavior`

  This section contains:

  - Enable Auto-indent — This option turns on the auto-indent ability in `gedit`. Auto-indent automatically indents the text at the same place in the line as the text in the previous line. Auto-indent is very useful when you are writing configuration files, scripts, code, etc… If you want to write paragraphs of text, the auto-indent function can be a hassle.

## Documents

Figure 10. The Preferences Dialog with the Documents Tab Highlighted

`MDI (Multiple Document Interface)`

  This section contains:

  - `Mode:` — This option specifies the way `gedit` displays the Main Window and how it opens new documents. The option determines the user interface you like to use for the Main Window There are 4 types of modes `gedit` can use. They are the notebook, toplevel, modal, and default modes.

    The notebook style looks strikingly similar to the Preferences… dialog. The most notable thing about this style is the tabs at the top of the Main Window. The highlighted tab is the document you are currently viewing. To change the document to another open document, just click on the cooresponding tab. In the notebook style you cannot view multiple documents at the same time. Only the current document can be seen.

    The toplevel style opens a new occurance of `gedit` for each document opened. The windows are stacked one on top of another, so they completely overlap. From this position, you can move the multiple `gedit` windows around to your liking. This lets you see more than one document, or different positions in the same document.

    The modal style will only open one occurance of gedit, no matter how many documents you open. You have to use the Documents menu to change between different documents. The default style is the same style as the modal style. This is a change from previous versions of `gedit`. The modal style is a very plain style for `gedit`.

  - `Notebook Tab Position:` — This option changes the place the tabs for the notebook style are located.

`Undo`

  This section contains:

  - `Set limit on undo levels to:` — This option sets the number of times you can undo a mistake. So, if you set the limit to 5 undo levels, then you can only use the undo button five times. If you make a lot of mistakes, like me, you might want to set this level higher than the default of 5 undo levels.

    | Users with low memory, under 16 MB, should set the number of undo levels lower because `gedit` stores each command into memory to the undo level limit. So, if you set the undo level limit to 50, then `gedit` will store up to 50 commands in your main memory.

## Fonts/Colors

Figure 11. The Preferences Dialog with the Fonts/Colors Tab Highlighted

`Fonts`

  This section contains:

  - `Default Font` — This option changes the font used in `gedit`.

`Colors`

  This section contains:

  - `Background:` — This option lets you choose the background color in `gedit`. This is the background color of the Main Window.

  - `Foreground:` — This option lets you choose the foreground color in `gedit`. This is the background color of the Main Window.

## Printing

Figure 12. The Preferences Dialog with the Printing Tab Highlighted

`Printing`

  This section contains:

  - Add header — This option adds a header to each page you print in `gedit`. As of `gedit` version 0.8.0, you cannot configure the header.

  - Enable word wrapping — This option turns on wordwrap. Wordwrap automatically puts the text you typed on the next line, if you exceed the page's width you select in the Paper tab of the Preferences dialog. So, you do not have to explicitly press the return key for each line you wanted printed.

  - Print line numbers every: — This option prints the line number of the file. You also have to select how often you want to line numbers printed. The default is to print the line number every five lines.

  - Portrait — This option selects to print the page using the portrait style. The portrait style has the text printed across the smallest side of the paper.

  - Landscape — This option selects to print the page using the portrait style. The portrait style has the text printed across the largest side of the paper.

## Paper

Figure 13. The Preferences Dialog with the Paper Tab Highlighted

This section contains:

- `Paper:` — This option selects the type of paper you will use to print the document. The `width` and `height` boxes will change automatically for the correct paper size.

- `Width:` — This option selects the width of the paper you will use to print the document. To the right of the `width` box is another box you can use to change the units the paper is measured in for the `width` and `height` boxes.

- `Height:` — This option selects the height of the paper you will use to print the document. To the right of the `height` box is the units the height of the paper is measured in.

- Set System Paper Size — This option sets the paper size in the `width` and `height` boxes to the system paper size. The system paper size is determined by the number in the environment variable $PAPERCONF or in the file `paperconf`.

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