I liked the Gedit from Gnome 2 and what shipped with Ubuntu 12, and 14. The Ubuntu 16/17 and Gnome 3 Gedit is crap. I hate the UI change. The removal of the menu, the ugly hamburger menu with few entries. Gnome 3 is like KDE 4/5 a trainwreck - instead of create a cheap ripoff UI, why not stay with what worked - Gnome 2 and KDE 3 were perfect, had a good UI, just slap a modern theme over. And the newer worse incarnation aren't even touch friendly, well like Win10 - ugly, slow - Win7 is the better one. Only Apple with macOS and Google with Android get it right, iOS6, iOS11, Android 7 all look great and modern, and the UI doesn't suck.
I will install "Ubuntu Mate", it comes with Gnome 2 shell built with gtk3.
I will install "Ubuntu Mate", it comes with Gnome 2 shell built with gtk3.