# Scripting

Textadept is entirely scriptable with Lua. In fact, the editor is mostly written
in Lua. As a result, Textadept has superb support for editing Lua code. Syntax
autocomplete and API documentation is available for many Textadept objects as
well as Lua's standard libraries. The [`lua` module][] also has more tools for
working with Lua code.

![Adeptsense ta](images/adeptsense_ta.png)
    
![Adeptsense tadoc](images/adeptsense_tadoc.png)

[`lua` module]: api/_M.lua.html

## LuaDoc and Examples

Textadept's API is heavily documented. The [API documentation][] is the ultimate
resource on scripting Textadept. There are of course abundant scripting examples
since the editor is written primarily in Lua.

[API documentation]: api/index.html

### Generating LuaDoc

You can generate Textadept-like API documentation for your own modules using the
*doc/markdowndoc.lua* [LuaDoc][] module (you must have [Discount][] installed):

    luadoc -d . [-t template_dir] --doclet _HOME/doc/markdowndoc [module(s)]

where `_HOME` is where Textadept is installed and `template_dir` is an optional
template directory that contains two Markdown files: *.header.md* and
*.footer.md*. (See *doc/.header.md* and *doc/.footer.md* for examples.) An
*api/* directory containing the API documentation HTML files is created in the
current directory.

[LuaDoc]: http://keplerproject.github.com/luadoc/
[Discount]: http://www.pell.portland.or.us/~orc/Code/discount/

## Lua Configuration

[Lua 5.2][] is built into Textadept. It has the same configuration (*luaconf.h*)
as vanilla Lua with the following exceptions:

* `TA_LUA_PATH` and `TA_LUA_CPATH` are the environment variable used in place of
  the usual `LUA_PATH` and `LUA_CPATH`.
* `LUA_ROOT` is "/usr/" in Linux systems instead of "/usr/local/".
* `LUA_PATH` and `LUA_CPATH` do not have "./?.lua" and "./?.so" in them.
* All compatibility flags for Lua 5.1 are turned off. (`LUA_COMPAT_UNPACK`,
  `LUA_COMPAT_LOADERS`, `LUA_COMPAT_LOG10`, `LUA_COMPAT_LOADSTRING`,
  `LUA_COMPAT_MAXN`, and `LUA_COMPAT_MODULE`.)

[Lua 5.2]: http://www.lua.org/manual/5.2/

### LuaJIT

Even though Textadept can be run with [LuaJIT][], LuaJIT is based on Lua 5.1 and
is not fully compatible with Lua 5.2. Therefore, modules and scripts should be
written to be compatible with both versions. For the most part, only Lua 5.2's
`_ENV` is not supported by LuaJIT.

[LuaJIT]: http://luajit.org

## Scintilla

The editing component used by Textadept is [Scintilla][]. The [buffer][] part of
Textadept's API is derived from the [Scintilla API][] so any C/C++ code using
Scintilla calls can be ported to Lua without too much trouble.

[Scintilla]: http://scintilla.org
[buffer]: api/buffer.html
[Scintilla API]: http://scintilla.org/ScintillaDoc.html

## Textadept Structure

Because Textadept is mostly written in Lua, its Lua scripts have to be stored in
an organized folder structure.

### Core

Textadept's core Lua modules are contained in *core/*. These are absolutely
necessary in order for the application to run. They are responsible for
Textadept's Lua to C interface, event structure, file interactions, and
localization.

### Lexers

Lexer modules are responsible for the syntax highlighting of source code. They
are located in *lexers/*.

### Modules

Generic and language-specific modules for editing text and source code are
contained in *modules/*.

### Themes

Built-in themes to customize the look and behavior of Textadept are located in
*themes/*.

### User

User preferences, Lua modules, themes, and user-data are contained in the
*~/.textadept/* folder. This folder may contain *lexers/*, *modules/*, and
*themes/* sub-directories.

### GTK+

The *etc/*, *lib/*, and *share/* directories are used by GTK+ and only appear in
the Win32 and Mac OSX packages.