Making VIM the default text editor on Ubuntu

In my never ending quest to find the ideal text editor here is another installment. Since I have been using VIM as my default command line editor for years I thought I give it a try for basic GUI editing as well.

Install and set desktop app & icon

sudo apt-get install
vim vim-gnome
sudo wget --output-document=/usr/share/applications/gvim.desktop 
https://raw.github.com/leogaggl/misc-scripts/master/gvim.desktop
sudo wget --output-document=/usr/share/icons/hicolor/scalable/apps/gvim.svg http://gfxmonk.net/images/vim-logo/vim-logo.svg
sudo update-desktop-database

Set MIME defaults

vim ~/.local/share/applications/mimeapps.list
#add or edit the following mime type and add others as needed
text/plain=gvim.desktop;`

Blogs

Finding a Notepad++ alternative / replacement on Ubuntu

One of the most important utilities on any computer is a decent text editing tool. Since there are as literally hundreds of text-editors out there you would think it is an easy task to find a similar one for each platform.

[![On the Road Manuscript, #1 by Thomas Hawk, on Flickr](http://farm1.static.flickr.com/39/93821899_5446eed3ef.jpg "On the Road Manuscript, #1 by Thomas Hawk, on Flickr")](http://www.flickr.com/photos/thomashawk/93821899/) [![Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial 2.0 Generic License](http://i.creativecommons.org/l/by-nc/2.0/80x15.png "Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial 2.0 Generic License")](http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/2.0/) by [ Thomas Hawk](http://www.flickr.com/people/thomashawk/)[ ](http://www.imagecodr.org/)

After years of trialing on various Windows platforms I have found [Notepad++](http://notepad-plus-plus.org/ "Notepad++") to be the most useful of them all (closely followed by EMEditor which I used for years before Notepad++). Since I have now switched to [Ubuntu](/2011/09/running-your-business-mostly-on-open-source-software/ "Running your business (mostly) on Open Source Software") completely it was necessary to find a permanent alternative on that platform since Notepad++ is only available on Windows.

The requirements list in order of priority:

Blogs

BESPIN - another nice one from Mozilla.org

Getting excited about a new text editor of all things is not something I like to admit to easily, but in my line of work (although less and less is actually doing hands on coding) text editing is an important part.

That’s why I checked out the BESPIN project as soon as I heard of it. The prospect of being able to edit your files from anywhere is very appealing to me since I spend a lot of time away from the desk and on devices that not always have good text editor (let alone all the files necessary). The thought of being able to edit files from a netbook while on the run is coming to mind straight away.