Leafpad is an open source

Open source

The term open source describes practices in production and development that promote access to the end product's source materials. Some consider open source a philosophy, others consider it a pragmatic methodology...

 text editor

Text editor

A text editor is a type of program used for editing plain text files.Text editors are often provided with operating systems or software development packages, and can be used to change configuration files and programming language source code....

 for Linux

Linux

Linux is a Unix-like computer operating system assembled under the model of free and open source software development and distribution. The defining component of any Linux system is the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released October 5, 1991 by Linus Torvalds...

, BSD

Berkeley Software Distribution

Berkeley Software Distribution is a Unix operating system derivative developed and distributed by the Computer Systems Research Group of the University of California, Berkeley, from 1977 to 1995...

, and Maemo

Maemo

Maemo is a software platform developed by the Maemo community for smartphones and Internet tablets. It is based on the Debian Linux distribution, but has no relation to it...

. Designed as a lightweight text editor with minimal dependencies

Data dependency

A data dependency in computer science is a situation in which a program statement refers to the data of a preceding statement. In compiler theory, the technique used to discover data dependencies among statements is called dependence analysis.There are three types of dependencies: data, name, and...

, it is designed to be a simple, easy-to-compile text editor, and is the default text editor for both the LXDE

LXDE

LXDE is a free and open source desktop environment for Unix and other POSIX compliant platforms, such as Linux or BSD. The goal of the project is to provide a desktop environment that is fast and energy efficient...

 Desktop environment

Desktop environment

In graphical computing, a desktop environment commonly refers to a style of graphical user interface derived from the desktop metaphor that is seen on most modern personal computers. These GUIs help the user in easily accessing, configuring, and modifying many important and frequently accessed...

 and Xubuntu

Xubuntu

Xubuntu is a Canonical Ltd. recognized, community maintained derivative of the Ubuntu operating system, using the Xfce desktop environment.The name Xubuntu is a portmanteau of Xfce and Ubuntu...

 11.10.

Released under the terms of the GNU General Public License

GNU General Public License

The GNU General Public License is the most widely used free software license, originally written by Richard Stallman for the GNU Project....

, Leafpad is free software

Free software

Free software, software libre or libre software is software that can be used, studied, and modified without restriction, and which can be copied and redistributed in modified or unmodified form either without restriction, or with restrictions that only ensure that further recipients can also do...

.

Features

Leafpad's features include a codeset

Character encoding

A character encoding system consists of a code that pairs each character from a given repertoire with something else, such as a sequence of natural numbers, octets or electrical pulses, in order to facilitate the transmission of data through telecommunication networks or storage of text in...

 option, auto codeset detection, an unlimited Undo/Redo feature, and drag and drop capabilities.

Leafpad has a small footprint

Memory footprint

Memory footprint refers to the amount of main memory that a program uses or references while running.This includes all sorts of active memory regions like code, static data sections , heap, as well as all the stacks, plus memory required to hold any additional data structures, such as symbol...

 compared to editors such as gedit

Gedit

gedit is a text editor for the GNOME desktop environment, Mac OS X and Microsoft Windows. Designed as a general purpose text editor, gedit emphasizes simplicity and ease of use...

 or Kate

Kate (text editor)

In computing, Kate is a text editor by KDE. The name Kate is an acronym for KDE Advanced Text Editor.-History:Kate has been part of KDE Software Compilation since release 2.2 in 2001. Because of the KParts technology, it is possible to embed Kate as an editing component in other KDE applications...

.