Some users of the Geditwhoupgraded to Ubuntu 16.04 LTS have been left unimpressed by the text editor’snew compact design.
Gedit 3.18 is included in the base install of Ubuntu 16.04 LTS desktop but lacks the fully-featured toolbar of Gedit 3.10 that previous LTS users were accustomed to.
Gedit Old
Gedit New
The goal of the new-look Gedit is to: “ …create a modern, slicker interface which wastes less screen estate and lets you focus on the text or code you are writing. No features were harmed in the making of this new UI .”
For some, this layout change, however well intentioned, interferes with learnedworkflows.
Get the Gedit Toolbar BackABCUser asked the following question onthe Ubuntu Forum (emphasis mine): “I used Ubuntu 14.04 LTS where Gedit looked fantastic having excellent toolbar. Now I installed Ubuntu 16.04 and there is minimalistic toolbar which is pretty much not really useful. How to get back toolbar in Gedit? (sic)”
The solution to this issue has beensent our way by reader ~ grof ― cheers! It involves adding a third-party PPA (don’t groan; usual caveats apply) that usessomeclever packaging totrick Ubuntu into ‘upgrading’ the newer version of Gedit toan older version of Gedit.
I do notsuggest that everyone reading this follows this“up-downgrade” on a whim. But those of you for whom the new version isn’t suited andwant it, here’s how to install Gedit 3.10 on Ubuntu 16.04 LTS:
Open a new Terminal window and run:
sudo apt-add-repository ppa:mc3man/oldersudo apt update && sudo apt install gedit gedit-plugins
This removes theexisting version of Geditand replaces it with the older version.
As the original forum member goes on to note of the solution: “Because of naming “is.really.” it is very likely that future potential Gedit fixes in 3.18.3-xxx will not override currently installed 3.10.4, because of whole naming thing.”
There are nopromises that it won’t, mind, so keep an eye on which updates you install in the near future.