Great Cross Platform Programmer's Editor

I am always looking for good tools. When I just need a text editor, I typically use JEdit. It is free, open source, and since it is written in Java, works well on Mac, Linux or Windows. However, JEdit is not always the simplest tool to configure and use.



Recently I ran across Sublime Text. For $60, you get a really nice editor, with an easy to use interface. Plus, the editor is skinnable so you have a number of options on how the editor and your code actually look. It has nice code completion features with customization options. Top that off with the fact it runs on Windows, Mac OS X, Linux. It is definitely worth a look.

Custom Launchers with Ubuntu Unity 12.04

As you know I have been playing around with Ubuntu 12.04 lately. I found this article on creating custom launchers and Quicklists for Ubuntu unity. Being able to customize the main interface is key to any operating system. That has not always been an easy thing to do in Linux.



In the article it looks fairly easy to customize entries for specific applications. However I'm not sure you can customize an icon to launch random applications, but I intend to look into that. Anyway there are a lot of examples here you can work from and it's a very informative article.

Keyboard Shortcuts and Menu for Ubuntu Unity 11.10 and 12.04

I installed Ubuntu 12.04 this weekend. The Unity interface is not my favorite, but I guess we are pretty much stuck with it. Anyway, I found a couple things that make using it easier.



First, it took me a long time, but I found them. Here are the keyboard shortcuts for the Unity UI and the launcher.

https://help.ubuntu.com/11.10/ubuntu-help/shell-keyboard-shortcuts.html

These seem to be the most relevant shortcuts for controlling the UI.



I was also wishing I could get the menu back. Turns out you can with Classic Menu Indicator. Check out the details here: http://www.noobslab.com/2011/07/classic-menu-indicator-on-ubuntu-1104.html



I know they need to try to push the UI forward, but why do you have to take the menu away. It takes almost no screen real estate. These UI experiments, and that's what they are, should not be forced on us. Instead, it should be very easy for me to switch between the new interface and the old one. Both Windows and OS X do this, why can't Ubuntu?