Out of the box, one thing that Nano is missing is spell checking. Nano does include the option for spell checking (you can even invoke spell checking from within Nano, but it won’t work). Why is this? Simple – Nano makes use of a specific spell checker that is not installed on most distributions by default. So even though Nano has the keyboard shortcut available for spell checking, you have to make it work. Let’s see how.

Installing the spell checker

Nano depends upon the package spell for spell checking. This is simple to install, from the command line, if you follow these steps:

1. Open up a terminal window.
2. Issue the command sudo apt-get install spell.
3. Type your sudo password and hit Enter.
4. Accept any dependencies (if necessary).
5. Let the installation complete.

Once complete you are ready to use spell checking.

Check your spelling

Figure 1

Open up a document for editing within Nano. When you do this you should see the list of keyboard shortcuts along the bottom of the screen. Of those shortcuts the ^T shortcut should be listed. That will invoke spell checking.

With your document open hit Ctrl-t to begin the check. Figure 1 shows the Nano spell checking in action. Spell will begin at the top of your document and continue on until it comes across a word it does not recognize. When it lands on a mis-spelled (or unrecognizable) word it will stop and ask you to correct the spelling of the misspelled word. Spell will not offer suggestions for replacements. Instead Spell will simply allow you to edit the misspelled word. Once you’ve edited the word you will have the chance to change all instances of the misspelled word. To replace a single instance just retype the word and hit enter. You will be asked if you want to replace that instance. If you want to only replace that instance hit Y (for yes) or, if you want to replace all instances hit A (for all) and all instances of the misspelled word will be replaced. If you have misspelled your correction just hit Ctrl-c to cancel the replacement.

Once Nano is finished with the spell checking it will inform you by saying so. Since there is nothing automated or fancy about Nano you will need to remember to save your changes made to your document when you exit (using Ctrl-x) the editor.

Final thoughts

Most users have grown accustomed to auto-spell checks that make spelling suggestions to the users. That’s not Nano. Nano wants you to think for yourself. It’s not perfect, but it’s as close to spell check as you will find with Nano.

So far I have covered Gedit (see “Gedit: No more text-based editor for you“) and Kate (see “Hello Kate, goodbye vi“). Both are solid entries in the text editor space. But they are certainly not the only tool in the toolbox. Today I will illustrate yet another GUI Linux editor, this time around – Leafpad. Leafpad is a GTK+ editor that focuses on simplicity. And when I say simplicity, I mean simplicity. So much so that you would swear you were just using a text-based editor with a few built-in drop-down menus. But why would you want to use a tool that is so close to the “original” that you might as well be using said original (original being the text-based editor). Let’s find out.

Features

As I said, Leafpad is about simplicity…so bells and whistles aplenty it doesn’t have. Does that detract from its usability? No way. Leafpad is just as viable a solution as any tool in its category. But what does it offer?

• Codeset option.
• Auto codeset detection.
• Unlimitted Undo/Redo.
• Auto/Multi-line Indent.
• Display line numbers.
• Drag and Drop text copy.
• Printing.
• Word wrap.
• Find.
• Jump to.

And that’s about it. But it is one feature (Drag and Drop) that really sets Leafpad apart. Let’s take a look at installation and use first.

Installation

Installation is simple. Open up your package management tool, search for “leafpad”, mark for installation, click Apply to install. That’s it. Once installed you will find Leafpad in Applications > Accessories.

Usage

Figure 1

Don’t panic. When you open up Leafpad it will look as if you just opened up a terminal window (see Figure 1).  The way I see Leafpad is the developers took what was best from a text-based editor and added a toolbar. It’s that simple.

It should be pretty apparent what you would do…you start typing your text! And when you are done you click File > Save to save said text. Of course you could also add line numbers, auto indent, and word wrap from the Options menu.

But the best feature of this tool is the Drag and Drop. Say you are reading a handy tutorial here on Ghacks that wants you to create a configuration file. You could open up leafpad, highlight the text from the Ghacks article, and then drag that text to the open Leafpad window and the text will automatically copy! Now in some instances you will have to click Options > Wordwrap or your text will be one continuous line (not good for configuration files or scipts).

That’s really about all there is to Leafpad.

Final thoughts

If you are looking for a tool somewhere between a text based and a GUI editor, leafpad is your tool. I have used Leafpad quite a bit and have nothing bad to say about it. It’s not fancy, it’s not bloated, it just does its job and does it well.

Sometimes however the message Do not disconnect appears although all transfers have been finished and iTunes has been closed. But don’t worry, you can try several things to make the message do not disconnect disappear. If iTunes is still started close it and see if the message disappears. If that is not the case start it again and click on the Eject Disk icon in the lower right of the screen.

Ejecting the iPod in iTunes could already be enough to make the message do not disconnect disappear. If that is not the case you will have to do the following. The iPod is connected to your operating system and should appear in the list of connected devices.

Right-click the iPod and select Eject from the context menu. This should remove the iPod from the list of devices and thus break the connection to your operating system. If the message still appears try searching for programs in the task manager that are related to your iPod and kill the process.

If the Do not Disconnect message still appears on your iPod you could try and simply disconnect it anyways. Just make sure that nothing is running in the background that is still communicating with your iPod. It should not be a problem then.