[MonoDevelop] Re. "External Tools" and Linux packaging

[Barry Block]

First, I've been using Monodevelop for a number of years and I have to 
express my gratitude to the developers for producing such a fine 
development tool for Linux.  My initial impression of the the 3.0.3.2 
release (I just began using it) is that it's really outstanding.  Great 
job guys!

I have two questions regarding Monodevelop.  First, I was wondering if 
the "external tools" in MD can operate on the text that is currently 
selected (in the same way that GEdit's external tools work--allowing you 
to run the external tool "on" the selected text and the result then 
replaces the selected text)?  Perhaps it can do this and I'm just not 
seeing how it's done.

Secondly, I'd like to be able to produce a Debian package of my GTK 
desktop application and with that in mind, which makefile type should I 
choose--"simple makefile" or "autotools based makefile"?  I realize that 
MD doesn't directly generate Debian packages but I'm guessing that one 
makefile generation option might be better than the other given my 
goal.  Any thoughts?  BTW, I'm a Linux packaging newb, in case it's not 
already obvious.  That said, in the past, I've managed to produce a 
binary .deb file for my application but I've always had a real difficult 
time determining its dependencies. At the very least, I'm hopeful that 
either of the two makefile options will at least resolve this issue for 
me...  Thanks, and once again, great job on the 3.0 release of MD!

Barry