Note: I was getting this annoying error which seems to happen because I am on Ubuntu 14.04. Apparently upgrading to Sublime Text 3 will fix it. I am now in the process of installing and setting up ST3. I’ll post about that I’m sure.

It took me a bit of time to set up Sublime Text 2 (ST2), and it required a lot of troubleshooting (using Google), lots of resources which all had different suggestions, and generally some headache.

I hope this guide will make things simpler the next time I or anyone needs to install and set up Sublime Text 2.

Specifications: Ubuntu 14.04.4 LTS

Install Sublime Text 2:

• I followed this guide to install via the Package Manager (apt-get):

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:webupd8team/sublime-text-2
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install sublime-text

Set up Sublime Text 2:

• This requires about 30 minutes
• I followed this clean, well-written guide. He wrote the guide for OSX, so I’ll translate the steps for Ubuntu:

Open Sublime Text for the first time:

1. Go to your terminal and enter subl to open Sublime.
2. Right click on the icon in the Launcher, and Lock to Launcher
3. Next, close the terminal that you used to open Sublime the first time. This will close Sublime.
4. Last, re-open Sublime from the Launcher, this time independent from any open Terminal.
   (I do this because I find that as I open applications, and windows, and terminals, my environment quickly becomes messy and disorganized. I like to have my applications open independent of their terminals to make my life easier.)

Open the editor’s console:

1. Go to this website. Select Sublime Text 2 at the top, and copy the entire block of code.
2. Go back to Sublime, Press ctrl+` (control backtick)
3. Paste the code and press Enter - The code at that website will update with every release.
4. Restart Sublime (You may have to do this more than once as it updates or installs things. They will prompt you to restart it.)

How to Install Packages:

1. Press ctrl+shift+p
2. This opens a search box at the top of the Sublime page
3. Type Install Package, and select “Package Control: Install Package” when it comes up
4. Another search box will come up in place of the previous one
5. From here you search for the different packages that you want. I installed the ones that the guide recommends. One or two of them might not have come up when I typed in the name. If so, I simply skipped them.

Install Packages (and set them up):

In the second search box that I describe above, type the name of the package, and press Enter when it comes up.

• Theme – Soda
• SideBarEnhancements
• TrailingSpaces

Configure your Settings:

• In the menu bar along the top of your screen (hold Alt if it isn’t coming up), navigate to: Preferences > Settings – User
• This will bring up a document (in Sublime) that looks roughly like:

{ 
"font_size": 14,
"ignored_packages":
[
"Vintage"
]
}

After installing the above packages, I adjusted my settings (from above) to this (below):

{
    "font_size": 14,
    "ignored_packages":
    [
        "Vintage"
    ],
    "indent_to_bracket": true,
    "soda_classic_tabs": true,
    "soda_folder_icons": true,
    "tab_size": 4,
    "theme": "Soda Dark 3.sublime-theme",
    "translate_tabs_to_spaces": true,
    "trim_trailing_white_space_on_save": true
}

• The “theme” above selects the Theme – Soda (I chose Dark version — replace Dark with Light for alternate)
• Adjust “tab_size” if needed

Configure more settings:

1. Navigate in Sublime’s menu bar to: Preferences > Package Settings > TrailingSpaces > Settings – User
2. Add this:

{
"trailing_spaces_include_current_line": false
}

Configure a few Key Bindings:

1. Navigate in Sublime’s menu bar to: Preferences > Key Bindings – User
2. Here is my file:

[
{ "keys": ["super+v"], "command": "paste_and_indent" },
{ "keys": ["super+shift+v"], "command": "paste" },`
{ "keys": ["shift+space"], "command": "move_to", "args": {"to": "eol", "extend": false} }
]

Note: - The first key binding replaces the ctrl+v function with “Paste and Indent“. This will adjust your Paste to automatically match the indentation of that in which you’re pasting. - The second key binding assigns your standard Paste function to ctrl+shift+v - The last key binding is one of my own making. Pressing shift+space will jump to the end of the line I’m on.

Another Note: - A built-in key binding that is really useful is ctrl+m. This will jump to the end of the current bracket in which you’re typing.

Don’t try to change Sublime’s icon

• The guide I was mentioned suggested doing this.
• However, I embarked upon that mission not knowing what I was getting myself into. It took me at least an hour to get it set up, and it wasn’t a big deal in the first place.
• Instead of coding for an hour+, I troubleshot changing icons in Ubuntu for an hour+

Set up a binary?

• I don’t know what this means, honestly, but the guide that I followed suggests doing it.
• I can’t remember whether I actually did it.
• I think this allows you to open Sublime, and to open documents and folders in Sublime, by using the keyword “subl”.
• I think that this might work by default now, perhaps a change since the guide was written?

I ignored all of the extra packages the guide recommends at the end.

A couple of things I figured out on my own:

• Set the language you’re coding in by navigating to: View > Syntax
• It’s useful to open entire directories in Sublime

Sources:

Guide I followed
Set up end-of-line keybinding
Discover ctrl+m shortcut