README.md for Github

1 files changed, 57 insertions, 0 deletions

diff --git a/README.md b/README.md
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..9db9af9
--- /dev/null
+++ b/README.md
@@ -0,0 +1,57 @@
+Overview
+========
+
+SciTECO is an interactive TECO dialect, similar to [VideoTECO](http://www.copters.com/teco.html).
+It also adds features from classic TECO-11, as well as unique new ideas.
+
+The basic approach to text editing is both radically different and surprisingly similar to popular
+editors like Vi or EMacs. Instead of using mostly keyboard commands to modify text in a visual
+manner, in SciTECO you edit a program (called macro) using very few keyboard commands (called
+immediate editing commands). This program edits text for the user and is executed immediately,
+as far as possible. For instance, moving the cursor to the right can be done immediatly via the
+"C" command which is a part of the editor language. The language is the editor so to speak.
+When you delete a character from the end of the command line macro (called rubout), the
+side-effects of that character which may be a command or part of a command, are undone.
+
+SciTECO uses the [Scintilla](http://www.scintilla.org/) editor component and supports
+GTK+ as well as NCurses frontends (using [Scinterm](http://foicica.com/scinterm/).
+
+Features
+========
+
+Some of these features are not yet present but expected to be supported in the near future.
+
+* All of the basic VideoTECO commands supported
+* Operator precedence in arithmetic expressions and an argument stack that may be modified
+  by the user (commands may have more than two arguments)
+* Extended Q-Register namespace (arbitrary strings): can be used to build libraries and
+  can be abused as a data structure
+* Make use of your keyboard's function keys by assigning them to strings inserted into
+  the command stream
+* Many TECO-11 features, like that most commands have a colon-modified form, string-building
+  characters, exotic match characters
+* Interactivity: supports filename completion via immediate editing commands (e.g. <TAB> in
+  commands accepting filenames); immediate searching (similar to search-as-you-type)
+* Command rubout: SciTECO can even undo file writes (`EF` command)
+* Munging: Macros may be munged, that is executed in batch mode. By default, a profile
+  is munged.
+* Syntax highlighting, styles, line numbers, etc. thanks to Scintilla
+
+Installation
+============
+
+SciTECO has the following build-time dependencies:
+* [Glib](http://developer.gnome.org/glib/), as a cross-platform runtime library
+* [Scintilla](http://www.scintilla.org/), and possibly [Scinterm](http://foicica.com/scinterm/)
+* [GTK+ 2](http://www.gtk.org/) or [NCurses](http://www.gnu.org/software/ncurses/).
+
+1. Build Scintilla as described in its README. If you want to build the ncurses version,
+   install Scinterm from a subdirectory of Scintilla called "scinterm".
+2. Untar/unzip SciTECO into a subdirectory of Scintilla.
+3. Build with `make INTERFACE=GTK` or `make INTERFACE=NCURSES` respectively.
+3. Install with `make install`.
+4. You are recommended to use the included "teco.ini" as a starting point for your profile,
+   so copy it to "~/.config/.teco_ini". The default teco.ini doesn't do much currently,
+   but it opens files specified on the shell commandline for you.
+
+More documentation is coming soon.