Fake Web IDE with External Tools in Gedit
Gedit is my favorite text editor. I like that it is fast, reliable, cross platform, and has a ton of useful plugins and features. I am currently using it to work with LaTeX and unless I am working on a huge project, I will typically use gedit for all of my development work, specifically when it comes to web development. I use a lot of the plugins in gedit, but I have never used the External Tools plugin before. External tools is a very useful plugin because it allows you to do pretty much anything. The reason why I wanted to use it in the first place was to find a way to quickly launch HTML files that I was currently working on in a web browser, while also saving all of the changes to other HTML/CSS/JavaScript files that were related and currently opened in gedit. This is essentially what an IDE would do when you hit Run. In the past, I would just save all of my document and find the file in Nautilus to launch it. The problem with this approach is that I have an obsessive need to organize all of my projects into obscure and seemingly endless file paths. This can make it pretty difficult to find the file that I am looking for. The External Tools plugin solves all of these issues in a very elegant and simple way. So, without further ado, here is how you make a fake Web Development IDE in Gedit using External Tools.
- Enable External Tools: Edit –> Preferences –> Plugins
- Create a New External Tool: Tools -> Manage External Tools -> Hit the Plus sign
- Name the tool whatever you would like
- Assign it a shortcut key (optional)
- Set the following options on the bottom right
- Save: All Documents
- Input: Current Document
- Output: None
- Applicability: All Documents
- In the script editor, enter the following short script. This script will open the current document in your default web browser.
#!/bin/sh x-www-browser $GEDIT_CURRENT_DOCUMENT_PATH
- Close, and you are done!
If you have some handy tips and tricks for gedit custom tools, please share in the comments below!
Thank you for reading! Share your thoughts with me on bluesky, mastodon, or via email.
Check out some more stuff to read down below.
Most popular posts this month
- 2024
- Reinstalling Windows at 1am
- SQLite DB Migrations with PRAGMA user_version
- My Custom Miniflux CSS Theme
- How to Disable Wayland in Debian Testing
Recent Favorite Blog Posts
This is a collection of the last 8 posts that I bookmarked.
- Give Your Spouse the Gift of a Couple's Email Domain from mtlynch.io
- Skip the Next iPhone from Articles on Jose M.
- Have smart glasses finally hit an inflection point? from The Torment Nexus
- The McPhee method from the jsomers.net blog
- Pluralistic: LLMs are slot-machines (16 Aug 2025) from Pluralistic: Daily links from Cory Doctorow
- Pluralistic: Bluesky creates the world's weirdest, hardest-to-understand binding arbitration clause (15 Aug 2025) from Pluralistic: Daily links from Cory Doctorow
- Just a Little More Context Bro, I Promise, and It’ll Fix Everything from Jim Nielsen’s Blog
- The Futzing Fraction from Deciphering Glyph
Articles from blogs I follow around the net
Futureverse announces restructuring two years after raising $54 million
In 2023, there was no shortage of buzzy press coverage for Futureverse, which promised to build a metaverse and gaming-focused blockchain. They partnered with Ready Player One author Ernest Cline to build the "Readyverse". Th…
via Web3 is Going Just Great September 30, 2025New site, kinda
If you’re reading this blog using RSS or via email (when I remember to send the content via email), you likely didn’t notice it. And if you’re reading my blog in the browser but are not a sharp observer, chances are, you also didn’t notice it. A n…
via Manuel Moreale — Everything Feed September 30, 2025Pluralistic: Announcing the Enshittification tour (30 Sep 2025)
Today's links Announcing the Enshittification tour: Come say hi, why dontcha? Hey look at this: Delights to delectate. Object permanence: HP defeat device; It Gets Better; OPM hack endangers CIA in Beijing; Self-driving cars crash. Upcoming appearance…
via Pluralistic: Daily links from Cory Doctorow September 30, 2025Generated by openring