# Introduction

## Overview

![Textadept](images/textadept.png)

Textadept is a fast, minimalist, and ridiculously extensible cross-platform text
editor for programmers. Written in a combination of C and [Lua][] and
relentlessly optimized for speed and minimalism over the years, Textadept is an
ideal editor for programmers who want endless extensibility options without
sacrificing speed or succumbing to code bloat and featuritis.

[Lua]: http://lua.org

### Fast

Textadept is _fast_. It starts up instantly and has a very responsive user
interface (UI). Even though the editor is mostly written in Lua, Lua is one of
the fastest scripting languages available. With the optional [LuaJIT][] version,
Textadept is faster than ever before.

[LuaJIT]: http://luajit.org

### Minimalist

Textadept is minimalist. Not only is this apparent in the UI, but the editor's C
core was designed to never exceed 2000 lines of code and its Lua extension code
is not supposed to go beyond 4000 lines. After 5 years of development, Textadept
has maintained the same amount of code since its inception (~5600 lines) while
evolving into a vastly superior editor.

### Ridiculously Extensible

Textadept is ridiculously extensible. It was designed to be that way from the
very beginning. The features came later. Most of Textadept is written in Lua,
from syntax highlighting to opening and saving files to searching and replacing
and more. Textadept gives you complete control over the entire application using
Lua. You can do everything from moving the caret to changing menus and key
commands on-the-fly to handling UI events. The possibilities are limitless.

![Split Views](images/splitviews.png)

## Manual Notation

* `~/` is denoted as the user's home directory. On Windows machines this is the
  value of the `USERHOME` environment variable (typically `C:\Users\<username>\`
  or `C:\Documents and Settings\<username>\`). On Linux and Mac OSX machines it
  is the value of `HOME` (typically `/home/<username>/` and `/Users/<username>/`
  respectively).
* Any relative directory paths, i.e. paths that do not begin with `/` or `C:\`,
  are relative to the location of Textadept.
* Key combinations are not case-sensitive. `Ctrl+N` means the `N` key is pressed
  with only the `Control` key being held down, not the `Shift` key.
  `Ctrl+Shift+N` means the `N` key is pressed with both `Control` and `Shift`
  keys being held down. The same notation is applicable to key chains:
  `Ctrl+N, N` vs. `Ctrl+N, Shift+N`. In the first key chain, `Control` and `N`
  are pressed followed by `N` with no modifiers. The second has `Control` and
  `N` pressed followed by `Shift` and `N`.
* When mentioning key commands, the Mac OSX and ncurses equivalents will often
  be shown in parenthesis. It may be tempting to assume that some Windows/Linux
  keys map to Mac OSX's (e.g. `Ctrl` to `⌘`) or ncurses' (e.g. `Ctrl` to `^`),
  but this is not always the case. Please do not view the key equivalents as
  translations of one another, but rather as separate entities. This will
  minimize confusion.