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+# Introduction
+
+## Purpose
+
+This manual is not intended to be completely comprehensive.
+
+## Textadept's Philosophy
+
+Textadept is a text editor for programmers.
+
+In a world where code bloat is commonplace and application speed is second to
+its number of features, Textadept breaks that trend, aiming to stay minimalist
+and fast, but at the same time being ridiculously extensible. At its core lies
+less than 2000 lines of C code, and that's how it always will be. While other
+editors rely on recordable macros to speed up workflow, shell scripts to quickly
+transform text, and static side panes to manage your documents, files, and more,
+Textadept takes it to the extreme: it gives you complete control over the entire
+application using the embedded [Lua][Lua] language. Lua is nearly as fast as C,
+and has a very small footprint. In fact, most of Textadept is written in Lua.
+Its incredibly fast startup time and operation attest to Lua's worthiness.
+
+Tired of all those features you never use in other editors? With Textadept you
+can disable or remove anything you dislike or do not need. Wish you had an
+additional feature? Chances are you can add it yourself.
+
+Annoyed of recording complicated macros in other editors, only to find yourself
+re-recording them over and over with little changes each time? You may be
+surprised to find you can write the same commands in Lua, from moving the caret
+to replacing text, performing searches, and much more!
+
+Worried that your existing shell scripts for transforming text in other editors
+will not be compatible with Lua or Textadept? No need to be. You can tell Lua to
+run them in your shell.
+
+Wish that you could add a feature to another editor's document/file browser/etc.
+side pane? Textadept allows you to create as many different kinds of browsers
+for heirarchical data as you want.
+
+These are just some of Textadept's strengths. Textadept is not about
+constraining the user to a certain set of features while allowing minimal
+custimization and/or extensibility. Textadept is about allowing that
+customization and extensibility from the get-go; the features come after that.
+
+[Lua]: http://lua.org
+
+## Help
+
+Textadept has a [mailing list][mailing_list] and a [wiki][wiki]. You can also
+join us on IRC via [freenode.net][freenode] in `#textadept`.
+
+[mailing_list]: http://groups.google.com/group/textadept
+[wiki]: http://caladbolg.net/textadeptwiki
+[freenode]: http://freenode.net
+
+## Screenshots
+
+<div style="float: left;">
+Main window.<br />
+<a href="http://caladbolg.net/images/textadept/window.png"><img src="http://caladbolg.net/images/textadept/window_t.png" alt="Main" /></a>
+</div>
+<div style="float: left; margin-left: 50px;">
+Open Buffers.<br />
+<a href="http://caladbolg.net/images/textadept/buffers.png"><img src="http://caladbolg.net/images/textadept/buffers_t.png" alt="Buffers" /></a>
+</div>
+<div style="margin-left: 400px;">
+Lua Commands.<br />
+<a href="http://caladbolg.net/images/textadept/command.png"><img src="http://caladbolg.net/images/textadept/command_t.png" alt="Command" /></a>
+</div>
+<div style="float: left;">
+Project Manager.<br />
+<a href="http://caladbolg.net/images/textadept/project.png"><img src="http://caladbolg.net/images/textadept/project_t.png" alt="PM" /></a>
+</div>
+<div style="margin-left: 200px;">
+Extras.<br />
+<a href="http://caladbolg.net/images/textadept/extra.png"><img src="http://caladbolg.net/images/textadept/extra_t.png" alt="Extras" /></a>
+</div>
+<div style="float: left;">
+Windows OS.<br />
+<a href="http://caladbolg.net/images/textadept/win32.png"><img src="http://caladbolg.net/images/textadept/win32_t.png" alt="Win32" /></a>
+</div>
+<div style="margin-left: 200px;">
+Linux OS.<br />
+<a href="http://caladbolg.net/images/textadept/linux.png"><img src="http://caladbolg.net/images/textadept/linux_t.png" alt="Linux" /></a>
+</div>