# How to run gvedit? **URL:** \ **Category:** Help\ **Created:** [November 6, 2025, 4:52pm UTC](https://forum.graphviz.org/t/how-to-run-gvedit/3239 "2025-11-06T16:52:35Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 7\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![decision-making-mike](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/9dc877/32.png) [@decision-making-mike](https://forum.graphviz.org/u/decision-making-mike)\ **Post date:** [November 6, 2025, 4:52pm UTC](https://forum.graphviz.org/t/how-to-run-gvedit/3239/1 "2025-11-06T16:52:35Z")
I’m using Linux and Graphviz 14.0.1 (20251006.0113) (built myself). ```bash which gvedit ``` gives nothing. ```bash man gvedit ``` gives ```auto No manual entry for gvedit ``` (I know that there’s the man page `cmd/gvedit/gvedit.1`) ```bash ./configure --help | grep -i gvedit ``` gives nothing. ```bash find / -executable -type f -iname '*gvedit*' 2>/dev/null ``` gives nothing. ---
**Author:** ![steveroush](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a9adbd/32.png) [@steveroush](https://forum.graphviz.org/u/steveroush)\ **Post date:** [November 6, 2025, 6:01pm UTC](https://forum.graphviz.org/t/how-to-run-gvedit/3239/2 "2025-11-06T18:01:54Z")
The man page: ```auto GVEDIT(1) General Commands Manual GVEDIT(1) 1mNAME0m gvedit - simple graph editor and viewer SYNOPSIS0m gvedit [-sv?] [file2] DESCRIPTION0m gvedit provides a simple graph editor and viewer. It allows many graphs to be viewed at the same time. The text of each graph is displayed in its own text window. The name of a Graphviz file can be specified on the command line. This graph file will be automatically opened on start-up. OPTIONS0m The following options are supported: -s By default, the layout algorithms that use initial positions given by a node's pos attribute (currently, fdp and neato) as‐ sume the coordinates are in inches. Frequently, the input graph has these in points, especially if the graph is output by a Graphviz layout algorithm. This flag can be used to scale the coordinates from points to inches. -v Verbose mode. -? Prints usage information and exit. AUTHOR0m Arif Bilgin Emden R. Gansner SEE ALSO0m dot(1) 4 April 2011 GVEDIT(1) ``` **which gvedit** gives `/home/myhome/bin/gvedit` ---
**Author:** ![dallured](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/a698b9/32.png) [@dallured](https://forum.graphviz.org/u/dallured)\ **Post date:** [November 7, 2025, 4:20pm UTC](https://forum.graphviz.org/t/how-to-run-gvedit/3239/3 "2025-11-07T16:20:26Z")
@decision-making-mike It looks like the `gvedit` program was not installed. You said that you built Graphviz yourself. When you ran `configure`, a status summary of about 70 lines was printed at the end. Can you please post that summary here? ---
**Author:** ![decision-making-mike](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/9dc877/32.png) [@decision-making-mike](https://forum.graphviz.org/u/decision-making-mike)\ **Post date:** [November 7, 2025, 11:22pm UTC](https://forum.graphviz.org/t/how-to-run-gvedit/3239/4 "2025-11-07T23:22:49Z")
That was it. There is a line containing the string `gvedit` in `configure`’s output. If you don’t mind, I’ll restrict the output I saw to the “commands” section: ```auto commands: dot: Yes (always enabled) neato: Yes (always enabled) fdp: Yes (always enabled) circo: Yes (always enabled) twopi: Yes (always enabled) gvpr: Yes (always enabled) gvmap: Yes (always enabled) smyrna: No (requires: gtk+ gtkglext glade gts glut) gvedit: No (QtCore not available) ``` I don’t know why I didn’t think about `configure`’s output earlier. Now that I knew (“then that I knew”?), I could install the packages that I had been lacking. Most probably it were `qtbase5-dev` and `qtbase5-gles-dev`. (It was trial and error what packages would work. The names and descriptions of those two, checked with `apt show qtbase5-dev qtbase5-gles-dev`, don’t mention they are related to the Qt Core module.) Then when I did ```bash ./configure ``` I got ```auto commands: (...) gvedit: Yes ``` Then I did `make` and `make install`, and now ```bash which gvedit ``` gives ```auto /usr/local/bin/gvedit ``` and ```bash man gvedit ``` shows the man page. Right at the first run I see a potential bug. I have two windows, one with commands, and the other with the layout. When I do “Window” → “Tile”, they get tiled. But when I subsequently do “Graph” → “Layout” (or press F5), the window with the layout goes into the foreground, is taken out of its position to the left, and changes its size. This makes the window with commands hidden (because it went to the background). I don’t know about other resolutions, but in my 1024x768, if the window with the commands happened to be on the right, the windows now look like ![After F5, right](https://global.discourse-cdn.com/graphviz/original/2X/e/e464c6cf44ba100f4549b215af3a08a7cfb48535.png) and if it happened to be on the left, the windows now look like ![After F5, left](https://global.discourse-cdn.com/graphviz/original/2X/b/b100e4f3cad6a7d30e5514b5a524ce11ee829ad1.png) To make the window with commands visible again, I need to do “Window” → “Tile” again. So, the expected behavior be that the window with the layout is not taken out of its position, thus doesn’t change its size, and the actual behavior is that it is taken out, and changes its size. ---
**Author:** ![smattr](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/graphviz/user_avatar/forum.graphviz.org/smattr/32/85_2.png) [@smattr](https://forum.graphviz.org/u/smattr)\ **Post date:** [November 8, 2025, 1:11am UTC](https://forum.graphviz.org/t/how-to-run-gvedit/3239/5 "2025-11-08T01:11:54Z")
For future reference, the [ci/ directory in the repository](https://gitlab.com/graphviz/graphviz/-/tree/4f9f76a73dbd765cdf09a9e4506bc381593c83c4/ci) contains Docker files for various operating systems. You can consult these to figure out dependent packages to install. If you’ve found a gvedit bug, please go ahead and [report it](https://gitlab.com/graphviz/graphviz/-/issues). ---
**Author:** ![decision-making-mike](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/9dc877/32.png) [@decision-making-mike](https://forum.graphviz.org/u/decision-making-mike)\ **Post date:** [November 8, 2025, 5:20pm UTC](https://forum.graphviz.org/t/how-to-run-gvedit/3239/6 "2025-11-08T17:20:12Z")
Thank you for the Docker files. As for reporting bugs, I would do it directly, but I’m not on GitLab. ---
**Author:** ![smattr](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/graphviz/user_avatar/forum.graphviz.org/smattr/32/85_2.png) [@smattr](https://forum.graphviz.org/u/smattr)\ **Post date:** [November 21, 2025, 2:16am UTC](https://forum.graphviz.org/t/how-to-run-gvedit/3239/7 "2025-11-21T02:16:10Z")
As the Graphviz README says: > If you do not want to sign up for Gitlab, you can email bug reports to the recent top committer (`git shortlog --email --numbered --summary origin/main~100.. | head -1`).