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Geany 2.0 Release Makes it a More Versatile Text Editor and IDE

Geany 2.0 arrives with new filetypes and other refinements.

Geany is regarded as one of the best Python IDEs for Linux, it is an open-source, lightweight IDE based on the GTK3 toolkit.

It can also be counted as one of the alternatives to Notepad++ on Linux considering Geany's feature-set appeals to variety of users.

Now, a new release has been introduced in the form of 'Geany 2.0' that offers many improvements.

Let's see what is in store.

🆕 Geany 2.0: What's New?

a screenshot of geany 2.0

The highlights of this Geany release can be divided into two distinct sections, which cover mostly the interface and better support for filetypes.

Filetype Upgrades

The filetype configuration for Kotlin was improved with updates to the basic types. Similarly, for Python, the standard library tags creation script was rewritten for Python 3 and support was improved for the ctags file format.

And finally, support for new filetypes such as AutoIt and GDScript were added to Geany, and the filetype configs for Nim and PHP updated for addressing some long-standing issues.

Interface Improvements

a screenshot of geany 2.0 tree view under the documents tab of the sidebar

Geany 2.0 features a new tree view in the sidebar for the documents list. It is enabled by default, so you don't have to do anything.

It is practical when you have numerous individual files to go through. You can also collapse specific folders to minimize the clutter.

a screenshot of geany 2.0 dark theme friendly colors for compiler messages

The compiler messages now use dark-theme friendly colors so that you can easily read the messages. This should be helpful during those late-night coding runs.

Furthermore, a new confirmation dialog was added to the “search & replace” feature for the whole session, and an option was added to show symbols in the symbol tree without the category group.

🛠️ Other Changes

Other than the above-mentioned, here are some changes that are worth noting:

  • Geany now requires GTK 3.24.
  • You can now scroll over document tabs.
  • Updated translations for various languages.
  • The keyword colorization was fixed on filetype change.
  • The 'Change History' feature is now enabled by default.

For more details on this release, you can go through the official release notes.

📥 Download Geany 2.0

As it is a cross-platform IDE, Geany 2.0 is available for Linux, Windows, and macOS. You can go to the Flathub store or its official website to grab the package of your choice.

You can also head over to its GitHub repo if you are interested in the source code.


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