ReText

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Resources

ReText is a Linux ready, simple (yet powerful) text editor for Markdown and reStructured text. ReText includes a built in "Live preview" function so that writers can see their changes in real-time.

retext 2-panel view

Installation

USE flags

USE flags for app-editors/retext Simple editor for Markdown and reStructuredText

test Enable dependencies and/or preparations necessary to run tests (usually controlled by FEATURES=test but can be toggled independently)

Data provided by the Gentoo Package Database · Last update: 2025-03-25 04:34 More information about USE flags

Emerge

Emerge ReText just like any standard program:

root #emerge --ask app-editors/retext

Troubleshooting

If you start ReText and upon startup get messages such as these:

CODE ReText message output

Traceback (most recent call last):
File "/usr/bin/retext", line 1530, in <module>
  main(sys.argv[1:])
File "/usr/bin/retext", line 1517, in main
  window = ReTextWindow()
File "/usr/bin/retext", line 547, in __init__
  self.tabWidget.addTab(self.createTab(""), self.tr('New document'))
File "/usr/bin/retext", line 605, in createTab
  if self.useWebKit:
AttributeError: 'ReTextWindow' object has no attribute 'useWebKit'

then you will need to build dev-python/PyQt4 with the webkit USE flag enabled. The way of resolving this issue is to modify the /etc/portage/package.use file by adding dev-python/PyQt4 webkit:

root #echo "dev-python/PyQt4 webkit" >> /etc/portage/package.use

For more information on USE flags see the Handbook's USE flag documentation.

Important
If you switch on webkit USE flag for dev-python/PyQt4, it requires the package libxml2 with the icu USE flag enabled. This will most likely lead to unsolvable Portage conflicts. If you find yourself in this situation try adding icu as a global USE flag in the /etc/portage/make.conf and re-emerging world. This is a pain but it will fix the problem.

Modify:

FILE /etc/portage/make.conf

USE="... icu ..."

Finally rebuild the system's world packages. This should satisfy all related issues:

root #emerge -uN @world

If done correctly any packages that support icu will be rebuilt, including webkit. The above command will probably take quite a while, but having a Markdown editor is worth it, right?!

No icons in toolbar

If the icons are missing the icon theme needs to be specified in gconf or in the ReText configuration file.

FILE ~/.config/ReText project/ReText.conf

[General]
iconTheme=gnome

Available icon themes are located in /usr/share/icons/ (hicolor will not work).