Word processing lite

If you're looking for elegant, intuitive, lightweight text editors, there are a slew of choices for the Linux platform. Here are a couple I tried.

Gedit

Gedit appears to be a small, lightweight text editor for the Linux GNOME desktop, but its look is deceptively simple. With just a few icons in a tool bar and a row of basic menus, it seems like Notepad for Linux. Poke around some, though, and you'll find there's more to it.

I was surprised to find color-coded syntax for many different files types (markup, CSS, scripting languages, compiled languages and more), as well as robust customization, the ability to revert to a saved version of a file and spell check.

However, it was missing a few other things that I'd want in a primary editor, such as text manipulation and macros, or one-click tagging for HTML (bold or links, for example). And while the basic text look and feel was pleasing to the eye, I found the syntax colors less so, even after playing around with fonts -- especially compared to something like Komodo Edit.

If you're looking for a simple editor to bang out a memo or write a quick script or code block, this is a good application. For longer, more in-depth and demanding tasks, though, I'd look for a more robust app.

Gedit ratings (on a scale of 1 to 10):

Ease of learning and use: 8

Look and feel: 7

Content editing (spell check, search/replace, etc.): 7

Simple HTML editing (bold, line breaks, ordered lists, etc.): 5

Customization (macro power, ease of creating): 5

Total: 32