I was browsing around linuxappfinder.com today and came across Geany, which I’ve already gotten quite comfortable with.

Notepad++ and Geany

Some features I found that make it similar to notepad++

- The hotkeys are very similar if not identical to notepad++ (gedit has different ones)
- It supports regex find/replace
- It supports ‘find in files’ - by using grep
- It’s a lightweight and efficient IDE

Some features Geany has that notepad++ doesn’t

- Status window with a history
- Scribble pad
- Built in terminal
- Color picker
- Support for projects
- Tight integration with my window manager
- The functions menu is expanded to contain all sorts of clever information that I can fold in a non buggy tree

Some features notepad++ has that geany doesn’t

- TextFX (neat macros that help you with string related pattern updates)
- GUI for changing theme colors
- Tabbed find/replace and find in all (nit pick)

Why I’m quickly choosing Geany over Notepad++

With tight integration with gnome (as opposed to notepad++ which I have to run through wine) and a package of dark themes which I was able to find quickly through the Geany’s FAQ.

I haven’t tried it on Windows yet but I’d imagine it’d run pretty well.. though you are missing out on a lot of things you can take advantage of in linux. If you’re a windows user and would like to give it a whirl, this will help you.