FOSSPicks
Textadept
Not many other software categories offer such breadth of choice as text editors. Of course, the old stalwarts are still causing trouble and discussion, but there's also a constant supply of new pretenders, each attempting a different take on entering one letter at a time. Textadept, like Min and micro, is aiming for the minimalist dollar, promising speed and distraction-free design without sacrificing essential features. Thankfully, it does have a different emphasis from Min, in an attempt to be an editor for programmers. It doesn't support quite as many languages, with around 100 languages currently supported for syntax highlighting purposes, but such large numbers don't really mean much when 90 percent of programming is done with just a handful of languages. And you can do more with those languages in Textadept than you can with Min.
Textadept is certainly mature. It's now 10 years old, with a release every two months for more than six years. It can be run either as a curses binary within the command line or as an application within its own window. The executable is around 5MB and can be run off a USB stick, with a promise to consume a mere 15MB of RAM. Into this tiny space, it's not only capable of cramming in the lighting fast syntax highlighting but, more importantly, code completion, too. For those of us without photographic memories, or perhaps getting on a little, from the time when source code was printed in yellow pages within magazines, this feature is essential. Autocompletion works with symbols within the files you're editing, as well as symbols for the language you're working with, complete with links to the API documentation. It's also almost entirely keyboard driven, completely themable, and well documented.
Project Website
https://foicica.com/textadept/
Email client
Geary 0.12
Offline email clients are still important and should remain important, despite many of us using web-based email clients for our day-to-day email needs. They're essential if you want to back up your email, for example, which is something you should be doing, but they're also useful productivity tools, keeping you away from the temptation of a browser or constant updates. The problem is that the popularity of web-based email clients has come at the cost of desktop clients, with most popular Linux clients going the same way as the awesome Eudora. Geary, after spending months in what felt like suspended animation, is proving the exception with this update, released almost 18 months after version 0.11. It is now part of the Gnome project, which is exactly where a project as good as Geary deserves to be.
The best thing about Geary is that it uses Vala/Gtk+, showing the best of Gnome's capabilities. Its slick design is better than the equivalent web client and will display more information, more efficiently. The transitions, for example, are wonderful, and the way the top bar is used as a toolbar and menu holder keeps everything looking clean, even on a KDE desktop with an entirely different window manager. Like Gmail, which you can integrate seamlessly, clever keywords can be used to group and search your inbox, and conversations are grouped vertically, making Geary one of the only offline Linux email applications to do this well. This new update adds lots of much needed stability and improves rich text message composition considerably. The best feature, though, is that you can now press Ctrl+? (Shift+/) to see a crib sheet of shortcuts for whichever mode you're in, helping you learn your way around the application effortlessly.
Project Website
https://github.com/GNOME/geary
Buy this article as PDF
(incl. VAT)
Buy Linux Magazine
Subscribe to our Linux Newsletters
Find Linux and Open Source Jobs
Subscribe to our ADMIN Newsletters
Support Our Work
Linux Magazine content is made possible with support from readers like you. Please consider contributing when you’ve found an article to be beneficial.
News
-
TUXEDO Computers Unveils Linux Laptop Featuring AMD Ryzen CPU
This latest release is the first laptop to include the new CPU from Ryzen and Linux preinstalled.
-
XZ Gets the All-Clear
The back door xz vulnerability has been officially reverted for Fedora 40 and versions 38 and 39 were never affected.
-
Canonical Collaborates with Qualcomm on New Venture
This new joint effort is geared toward bringing Ubuntu and Ubuntu Core to Qualcomm-powered devices.
-
Kodi 21.0 Open-Source Entertainment Hub Released
After a year of development, the award-winning Kodi cross-platform, media center software is now available with many new additions and improvements.
-
Linux Usage Increases in Two Key Areas
If market share is your thing, you'll be happy to know that Linux is on the rise in two areas that, if they keep climbing, could have serious meaning for Linux's future.
-
Vulnerability Discovered in xz Libraries
An urgent alert for Fedora 40 has been posted and users should pay attention.
-
Canonical Bumps LTS Support to 12 years
If you're worried that your Ubuntu LTS release won't be supported long enough to last, Canonical has a surprise for you in the form of 12 years of security coverage.
-
Fedora 40 Beta Released Soon
With the official release of Fedora 40 coming in April, it's almost time to download the beta and see what's new.
-
New Pentesting Distribution to Compete with Kali Linux
SnoopGod is now available for your testing needs
-
Juno Computers Launches Another Linux Laptop
If you're looking for a powerhouse laptop that runs Ubuntu, the Juno Computers Neptune 17 v6 should be on your radar.