FAQ - Textadept

# Textadept

- Home |
- Download |
- Lua API |
- Source |
- Language Modules |
- Stats |
- Wiki |
- Mailing List

# FAQ

Q: What is the difference between textadept and textadeptjit? Which one should I use?

A: textadept uses Lua 5.2 while textadeptjit uses LuaJIT, which is based on Lua 5.1. Other than access to the FFI Library, textadeptjit does not provide any noteworthy benefits. It used to be the case that textadeptjit was slightly faster when loading large files, but Textadept 6.1 was the last version that had a noticible difference between the two. textadept is recommended.

Q: On Linux I get a `error while loading shared libraries: <lib>: cannot open` `shared object file: No such file or directory` when trying to run Textadept. How do I fix it?

A: It is difficult to provide a binary that runs on all Linux platforms since the library versions installed vary widely from distribution to distribution. For example, “libpng14” has been available for many distributions since late 2009 while the latest 2012 Ubuntu still uses “libpng12”. Unfortunately in these cases, the best idea is to compile Textadept. This process is actually very simple though. See the compiling page. Only the GTK+ development libraries are needed for the GUI version. (A development library for a curses implementation is required for the terminal version.)

Q: I downloaded the Linux version, but when I try to compile it, some files are not found. Where do I get these files?

A: You need to download the source version of the release, not the binary version. The source version contains all the files necessary for compiling Textadept.

Q: When I click the “Compile” or “Run” menu item (or execute the key command), either nothing happens or the wrong command is executed. How can I tell Textadept which command to run?

A: Take a look at these commands.

Q: Clicking “Block Comment” (or executing the key command) does nothing. Why?

A: Take a look at these comments.

Q: The curses version does not support feature x the GUI version does. Is this a bug?

A: Maybe. Some terminals do not recognize certain key commands like `Shift+Arrow` for making selections. Linux’s virtual terminals (the ones accessible with `Ctrl+Alt+FunctionKey`) are an example. GNOME Terminal, LXTerminal and XTerm seem to work fine. rxvt and rxvt-unicode do not work out of the box, but may be configurable.

Please see the curses compatibility section of the appendix. If the feature in question is not listed there, it may be a bug. Please contact me with any bug reports.

Q: Pressing `^O` in the curses version on Mac OSX does not do anything. Why?

A: For whatever reason, `^O` is discarded by the terminal driver. To enable it, run `stty discard undef` first. You can put the command in your ~/.bashrc or ~/.bash_profile to make it permanent.

Q: Why does Textadept remember its window size but not its window position?

A: Your window manager is to blame. Textadept is not responsible for, and should never attempt to set its window position.