You can use Gabedit without Open Babel. The Open babel library is not required to compile Gabedit. However, the Open Babel tools can be used via Gabedit to :
1) Read geometry from a file with a format not yet supported directly by Gabedit. Gabedit can read geometries from file without OpenBabel for several formats. For formats not yet supported by Gabedit, you can use openbabel to read them. From the popup menu of "Draw Geometry" window, select "Read/Other format using open babel".
2) Compute energies and optimize geometries using one of Molecular Mechanic (MM) potentials implemented in OpenBabel like : MMFF94, MMFF94s, UFF and Ghemical. After building of geometry, select from the popup menu of "Draw geometry" window (Semi-)empirical/OpenBabel Energy or OpenBabel Optimization
3) Make molecular dynamic (MD) or conformations search by MD using one of four MM potentials supported by OpenBabel. After building of geometry, select from the popup menu of "Draw geometry" window "(Semi-)empirical/Molecular dynamic" or "Molecular dynamic conformational search". You obtained a new window, click to Model and select "Use open babel with method".
To use OpenBabel tools with Gabedit, obgradient, obopt programs and the 2.3.2 folder of MM parameters are needed and to be installed in
C:\OpenBabel under windows and in $HOME/OpenBabel under unix (MacOS and Linux).
You can change the location of this folder but the directory must be changed via "Preferences/Other" gabedit window.
You can download the binary OpenBabel tools (obgradient, obopt and the MM parameters folder) from :