[gedit-list] Recent changes to Gedit

[Mark Ballard <markjballard googlemail com>]

I'd like to raise a couple of points about recent changes to Gedit (3.2.3).

i) Date insert

ii) Search

I do, btw, think its an excellent editor. I use it as a wordprocessor. I'm a journalist. I use gedit constantly, for pretty much everything that ain't online.

i) Date insert

I was making constant use of the date insert for research notes. This facility became dysfunctional (for me) with the upgrade to ubuntu 11.10 (as, alas, did much).

Previously, I could insert a date in a pre-selected format using a simple keyboard shortcut: ALT-E-S-<RETURN>. This would insert a current date in the blink of an eye. It also offered 29 different date formats. It would remember my pre-selected format.

That date facility appears to have diminished in the current 3.2.3 version of Gedit. The shortcut ALT-E-S still works. But there are no date format options anymore (doing away with the need for the last step and/or keyboard-shortcut keypress). It inserts dates now only in the following format: "Tue 10 Jan 2012 19:24:58 GMT". This is not useful for me. I have been recording research notes for some considerable time in the format 10/01/12. I might in retrospect adapt my dates to include a time, but then I would choose the following format, which was available to me under the previous version: "10/01/12 19:24:58". A simpler format is more useful for reading, comprehension and spacing in written notes. The new format is prohibitive. I have stopped using the facility.

ii) Search

I have given the new search facility some time to settle in. But it's having trouble. It makes sense but is unintuitive and contradicts conventions used elsewhere - such as in browsers and other editors, or indeed the Gmail window in which I am typing this email message. I am consequently always finding the Gedit search facility is behaving contrary to my habituated expectations. This creates a serious problem.

As it now works, I can search using CTRL-F then typing text and using the arrow keys to find text up or down in the text. If I press <RETURN>, the search returns keyboard control to the editor and the the place where any highlighted text was found. But the standard method uses <RETURN> to make the search facility step through found instances of its given search text. As such, when one is mid-edit and hopping from search to written text, between documents and other applications using keyboard short-cuts it is usual to use the <RETURN> in quick-fire. But since Gedit's new search facility uses <RETURN> to pass control back to the editor, my searches often result in the deletion of text in the active document: on returning to the editor, Gedit auto-selects the found text. With a rapid-fire <RETURN> it's been deleted before you know it.

Also, since the standard method for search facilities to pass control back to the main programme is <ESC>, this creates confusion. In the new Gedit, <ESC> cancels the search. It returns control to the programme but cancels wipes any progress that had been made meanwhile by the search. So, for example, if I'm searching for the word "mouse" and have searched through 12 instances and then press <ESC> the programme will return to where it last was before the search began, usually right at the beginning of the programme, like getting turfed out of a moving train.

So your unconscious thought process goes something like this: So <RETURN> passes control back to the programme, right? But hang around, what was it that you press to search through the found instances of the search text again? Oh, that it - its the down arrow. But how do then get back to the editor if you are not pressing <RETURN> to search through the found search instances? Oh that's it, you press <ESC> to get back to the programme. But hang around, it's just put me back where I started. So I press CTRL-F again and <RETURN> to search. Oh wait a minute I've just deleted something. So CTRL-F, then down arrow - there, that's what I want... blah blah. You get the picture. Agh. etc.

I am, btw, a big fan of Gedit. It's an excellent piece of software. These latest changes have made me pull my hair out. They were introduced along with a big bag of infuriating changes to the Ubuntu gui. A lot of stuff has disappeared and become unintuitive or contrary to habituated practice. I'm still using the software and its been some months since these changes were made but its like having one hand tied behind my back.

Mark.