looking for a Gedit-like text editor
 

Any recommendations for a text editor similar to Gedit? I've favored Gedit for a while, but I simply don't like the new interface of the latest version, which resembles Firefox. All it did was make an editor that had probably nothing to criticize slightly less convenient to use; moving most of the menu options to one right-side menu with an icon displaying three horizontal bars (hence the Firefox resemblance) only served to annoy me. There doesn't appear to be any way of changing it back, and I can't downgrade--no other version available. Guess I'll see what else is out there.

I like the multi-tab functionality in Gedit, but the only particular feature I require is datestamping. If there were a similar graphical text editor with datestamping but no tabs, I would try it.

The MATE fork of Gedit, Pluma, acts like Gedit back in the good old days. There's also an XApps version and KDE's KWrite

I like, use and paid for Sublime Text2.
It's only shortfall is NO NATIVE PRINT function.

xed is essentially gedit with the traditional UI, with some changes by the Linux Mint team.
Might be worth looking at.

I like KWrite but can't use it because I don't like KDE
 

Thanks, I'm trying out Pluma. I used KWrite years ago and like it; trouble is, you can't install it without installing a large number of KDE files, and I don't like KDE 4--hate it, really. (Although Trinity was good until I noticed it seemed a little buggy.)

I currently use XFCE.

There is also geany, it's still gtk2.

Kate? Kwrite?

Wine and Notepad++?

That is by no means a ridiculous idea, and I considered it during my early years in Linux (and probably tried it), because I liked Windows Notepad. It was extremely simplistic but extremely quick and efficient; and I have never seen an easier datestamp function--you simply press F5. (Every Linux editor I know with a datestamp requires opening a menu.)
The only reason I didn't stick with this plan is that in principle, its convoluted nature (use two programs just to run a text editor, which wasn't even a Linux text editor) seemed to defeat the purpose of keeping Notepad (simplicity).

Agreed. But your argument is that the only reason to keep Notepad++ is simplicity. I would argue that, in my case, I have wine installed anyway - and Notepad++ is just so good at so many different things and it is hardly simplistic. Look at its wonderful macro recording and the plugin system!

I keep wine around for two reasons. At home it keeps me from having to run windows, because the few programs the wife requires works in wine. Second, I really like Notepad++ and Irfanview.