# Developer's mode edit button no action in Linux

**URL:** https://discourse.slicer.org/t/developers-mode-edit-button-no-action-in-linux/29072
**Category:** Support
**Created:** [April 23, 2023, 8:38pm UTC](https://discourse.slicer.org/t/developers-mode-edit-button-no-action-in-linux/29072 "2023-04-23T20:38:14Z")
**Posts on this page:** 4
**Page:** 1

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### Author: ![muratmaga](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex002/user_avatar/discourse.slicer.org/muratmaga/32/3622_2.png) [@muratmaga](https://discourse.slicer.org/u/muratmaga)
#### Post date: [April 23, 2023, 8:38pm UTC](https://discourse.slicer.org/t/developers-mode-edit-button-no-action-in-linux/29072/1 "2023-04-23T20:38:14Z")

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After enabling the developer mode, I expect the edit button would open the source code of the active module in a text editor.

 ![image](https://us1.discourse-cdn.com/flex002/uploads/slicer/original/3X/f/b/fb2df59cc3afbfd5622b9da9c7986f18f827d178.png)

In Linux, this doesn’t seem to do anything, even though there are multiple registered editors available in the system (gedit, Rstudio, etc). At the minimum it should open with vi or something. It also doesnt seem like a user-editable setting under the developer settings in Application Settings menu.

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### Author: ![pieper](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex002/user_avatar/discourse.slicer.org/pieper/32/8_2.png) [@pieper](https://discourse.slicer.org/u/pieper)
#### Post date: [April 23, 2023, 9:15pm UTC](https://discourse.slicer.org/t/developers-mode-edit-button-no-action-in-linux/29072/2 "2023-04-23T21:15:25Z")

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I don’t use that button, but I suspect you can control it with something like `export EDITOR=gvim` or similar in the shell before you start Slicer. This would at least be the old school way of doing it.

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### Author: ![muratmaga](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex002/user_avatar/discourse.slicer.org/muratmaga/32/3622_2.png) [@muratmaga](https://discourse.slicer.org/u/muratmaga)
#### Post date: [April 23, 2023, 9:27pm UTC](https://discourse.slicer.org/t/developers-mode-edit-button-no-action-in-linux/29072/3 "2023-04-23T21:27:22Z")

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EDITOR/VISUAL shell variables didn’t seem to have any effect. It is not a big deal. It just helps not to navigate a bunch of folders to take a peek at the code… Works well on Mac.

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<div class="post-metadata">

### Author: ![pieper](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex002/user_avatar/discourse.slicer.org/pieper/32/8_2.png) [@pieper](https://discourse.slicer.org/u/pieper)
#### Post date: [April 23, 2023, 9:34pm UTC](https://discourse.slicer.org/t/developers-mode-edit-button-no-action-in-linux/29072/4 "2023-04-23T21:34:36Z")

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Here’s the code that we use:

> <https://github.com/Slicer/Slicer/blob/e14435d3ff7205446ba5eae0e9d50d2dbb7a4148/Base/Python/slicer/ScriptedLoadableModule.py#L226-L228>

It looks configurable, but may require some work:

[https://doc.qt.io/qt-5/qdesktopservices.html](https://doc.qt.io/qt-5/qdesktopservices.html)

Maybe better if we check the return code from the `openUrl` call and if it fails we put up a dialog box with the file path and a button to copy it to the clipboard.