How do I set gvim as my default text editor instead of gedit?

Question

I know I could use something like Ubuntu Tweak to change the file associations for each file. But I am wondering if there is a way to do it faster and just set the system so that all the files that would have been opened by gedit are now going to be handled by gvim.

Answer 1

Right click the file you want to open, select "Open With other application". A Window will pop-up containing a list of all the installed programs. Select gvim from the list, and make sure "Remember this application..." is selected. That will open all files of that type in gvim. However, that is only half the story, since there are many more file types. Another way is to edit or create this file:

~/.local/share/applications/defaults.list

and make sure it contains

[Default Applications]
text/plain=gvim.desktop

A recommnded way of doing it is to type this command in a terminal:

sudo update-alternatives --config editor

to update the command line editor, and

sudo update-alternatives --config gnome-text-editor

to update the GUI editor. Enter the number corresponding to the editor that you want to set as you editor, and press enter. That will update all you system references.

That should about do it.

Answer 2

This question is asked all the time, and none of the answers seem to work 100%.

If you are lazy and don't mind a quick and dirty hack, try this:

sudo mv /usr/bin/gedit /usr/bin/gedit.old
sudo ln -s /usr/bin/gvim /usr/bin/gedit

Your edit windows will still show "GEDIT" in the title bar, but the window will contain gvim.