How to force gedit to run each window in a separate process?

Question

With Ubuntu and Gnome classic desktop, sometimes I have separate windows of gedit open on different workspaces.

Since the program has its flaws and can be easily choked, for example by trying to undo a large replace action, I sometimes need to force-quit.

Then, all other windows are also killed. Plus, when one window is stuck, all the others are also not responding either, so I cannot continue to work on other tasks while the one that has a problem is recovering.

I guess if each window would run in a separate process, this would not happen.

Is there a way to make this happen?

Answer 1

You are probably looking for this option:

-s, --standalone
      Run gedit in standalone mode.

(From man gedit.)

Answer 2

Question: "How to default each new gedit window to standalone?" Radio Controlled 17 Sept 2019

Background: gedit opens text files. The default application for opening files of type TEXT was likely set to gedit. Application gedit opens new files in a separate tab, not in a separate window.

Solution: Change the default application from gedit to another application. Let's name the replacement application geditx. Application geditx will be application gedit with a different command line option (see below).

Implementation:

In desktop environment MATE, a change of application for a file type is made by right-click on a file name of that exact type, then select "Open With" and "Other Application ...".

Other desktop environments have similar steps. Ubuntu:

https://help.ubuntu.com/stable/ubuntu-help/files-open.html.en

Wait! To change existing gedit to geditx requires application geditx to exist.

How to define geditx? Some solutions:

1. In a terminal create an alias: alias geditx="gedit -s" While command geditx works in a terminal, it is not an option in the desktop environment. Fail.

   However, the alias geditx for application gedit may be useful in a terminal window. In the work space used by the terminal window, geditx would open a standalone gedit window.

2. Create a shell script named geditx. Application geditx will be an option in the desktop environment. Switching from gedit to geditx as the default application for files of type TEXT will change from opening files in tabs to opening files in separate windows.

   Warning: Opening a file within geditx (which is gedit) from the File Menu will open a new tab, not a new window.

   Warning: Double-click on a text file in the graphical interface will use gedit, unless the default application for text files is changed to geditx.

Contents of shell script geditx:

#!/bin/sh
gedit -s "$@"

Details about the save location for geditx and permissions

Save the shell script in some $HOME folder. Make geditx executable, which translates to:

   Open a terminal in the folder where geditx was saved. 
   Then: chmod +x geditx 

The folder in $HOME where geditx was saved has to be in environment variable PATH. If not, then solve this issue separately.

An alternative is to copy file geditx to /usr/local/bin and execute chmod +x in that folder. This requires administrator access to the folder /usr/local/bin which is normally done in Linux as follows:

sudo cp geditx /usr/local/bin
sudo chmod +x /usr/local/bin/geditx