To answer your second question, and hopefully guide you in a direction you ll be happier with, I think you ought to consider trying some different editors. There are many with more powerful code exploration features than GEdit has. Check out this post:

What IDE to use for Python?

Yes, you use "external tools plugin"

• http://live.gnome.org/Gedit/ToolLauncherPlugin

As an example,

1. Edit > Preferences
2. Plugins
3. Tick "External Tools"

4. Close the Preferences Window

5. Tools > Manage External Tools

6. Click the "Add new too" icon in the bottom left
7. Name it "Execute Highlighted Python Code"
8. give it a keyboard shortcut
9. change the input combo box to : "highlighted selection"
10. change the output to : "Display in Bottom Pane"
11. In the editor window for the tool, replace everything with :

.

#!/usr/bin/env python
import sys
result = eval(sys.stdin.read())
print expression, "=>", result, type(result)

.

If you wish to see the result of entire .py file, you can put this code in your new created external tool window

#!/usr/bin/env python
import sys
exec(sys.stdin.read())

and change the Input to Current document.

For python, You can use "external tools plugin":

#!/bin/sh
python3 "$GEDIT_CURRENT_DOCUMENT_PATH"

Option of external tool: Save: Current Document Input: Current Document Output: Display in bottom panel

Language: Python or Python3

Don t forget the quotes around $GEDIT_CURRENT_DOCUMENT_PATH....

I installed iPython console in gedit and do most of my simple scripting in it, but gedit is a very simple editor, so it ll not have some advance feature like an IDE

But if you want code exploring, or auto completion, I recommend a real IDE like Eclipse.

If you just want a editor, KomodoEdit is fine.

What I do is keep a file called python_temp.py. I have a shortcut to it in my dock. I use it as a scratch pad. Whenever I want to quickly run some code, I copy the code, click the shortcut in the doc, paste in the text and hit f5 to run. Quick, easy, simple, flexible.

I think what you re looking for is http://live.gnome.org/Gedit/Plugins/BetterPythonConsole.

You hit F5 and it runs the code in your file in a IDLE-like console. I don t know if it can only run selected code. (I don t think it can) but you can always copy the needed code in a new window and run it from there.

Have a look through the plugin list for other interesting stuff: http://live.gnome.org/Gedit/Plugins

The closest to a decent IDE... Install gedit-developer-plugins (through synaptic || apt-get) and don t forget to enable (what you need) from gEdit s plugins (Edit->Preferences [tab] plugins) and happy coding