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What are the best open-source programmable text editors?

14

Options
Considered

125

User
Recs.

Jun 2, 2022

Last
Updated

Here’s the Deal

14 Options Considered

Best open-source programmable text editors	Price	Platforms	License
84 Emacs	-	Unix-like, Windows, Cygwin	GPL
76 Vim	-	Linux, macOS, Windows, Cygwin	Vim License
-- Neovim	-	Linux, Windows, macOS, *nix, Android	Apache
-- Textadept	Free	Windows, Linux, Mac, BSD	-
-- Sublime Text	Free / Paid	Windows; macOS; Linux	Proprietary

Emacs

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Top Pro

Total customizability

Customizations can be made to a wide range of Emacs' functions through a Lisp dialect (Emacs Lisp). A robust list of existing Lisp extensions include the practical (git integration, syntax highlighting, etc) to the utilitarian (calculators, calendars) to the sublime (chess, Eliza). See More

Top Con

Sometimes the extensibility can distract you from your actual work

If I ever want to lose half a day, I'll start by tweaking my .spacemacs config file. See More

Sassan Haradji's Experience

It's an operating system not an editor nor an IDE though of course an operating system which includes an editor and an IDE. See More

Specs

Platforms:Unix-like, Windows, Cygwin

Cross Platform:Yes

Bracket Matching:Yes

Top Pro

Vi keybindings through Evil mode

Evil mode emulates vim behaviors within Emacs. It enables Vi users to move inside the Emacs universe. See More

Top Con

Can take awhile to learn

While it's better than it used to be, with most functions being possible through the menu, Emacs is still quite a bit different from your standard editor. You'll need to learn new keyboard shortcuts. See More

Maxim Kim's Experience

The best git experience with Magit See More

Top Pro

Keyboard-focused, mouse-free editing

Emacs can be controlled entirely with the keyboard. See More

Top Con

Default keybindings may cause Repetitive Strain Injury

Richard Stallman himself, the primary maintainer of GNU Emacs, suffered crippling RSI for years. Unlike editors that allow a relaxed, home-row oriented approach to using the keyboard with only occasional need to use a modifier key, Emacs requires frequently contorting hands to use several keys at once, giving rise to jokes about EMACS being a euphemism for "Esc-Meta-Alt-Ctrl-Shift". See More

MemorableNapkiraly's Experience

hands on and rogbust with wealth of support function See More

Top Pro

Great documentation

With 30+ years of use the Emacs documentation is very thorough. There are also a lot of tutorials and guides written by third parties. See More

Top Con

Chorded keyboard combinations can be baffling

For example, for navigation it uses the b, n, p, l keys. Which for some people may seem strange. See More

Top Pro

Works in terminal or as a GUI application

You can use Emacs' command line interface or graphical user interface. See More

Top Pro

Cross-platform

Works on Linux, Windows, Macintosh, BSD, and others. See More

Top Pro

Free

Licensed under GNU GPL. See More

Top Pro

(Almost) everything is implemented in Emacs Lisp. You are the limit.

Top Pro

It's also an IDE

You can debug, compile, manage files, integrate with version control systems, etc. All through the various plugins that can be installed. See More

Top Pro

Provides org-mode

Advanced planning and publication which can start as a simple list. See More

Top Pro

Versatile

Emacs is great for everything. See More

Top Pro

Magit

Top Pro

use-package and org-mode

Missing some neural package that predicts actions Maybe in the next release ... See More

Top Pro

Excellent Lisp editing support

Built-in packages make editing Lisp source code feel natural. See More

Top Pro

Visual selection and text objects with Evil

Evil is an extensible vi layer for Emacs. It provides Vim features like Visual selection and text objects. See More

Top Pro

Interactive Shells

Emacs has a number of shell variants: ansi-term, shell, and eshell. See More

Top Pro

eshell is cross platform

You can use the underlying operating system shell as a terminal emulation in an Emacs buffer. Don't like the default shell for your configuration? You can change it to your liking. See More

Top Pro

Customisation with Emacs Lisp

(Almost) everything is implemented in Emacs Lisp. You are the limit when it comes to changing or adding new functions to emacs. See More

Top Pro

Excelent tutorial to get you started

The tutorial you are presented with at startup shows you exactly what you need to get started and teaches you how to use the built-in help yourself later. See More

Top Pro

Gnus

Managing several large mailing lists has never been easier using Gnus. The threading commands and the various ways of scoring articles means that I never miss important messages/authors, etc. A joy to use. See More

Top Pro

dabbrev-expand (Alt-/)

Dynamic word completion. See More

Top Pro

Real time display editor

Top Pro

Integrates planning in your development process

You can jump straight from your org-mode files to programming tasks - and back - and build a seamless workflow. See More

Top Pro

Support multi-line editing, multiple frame, powerful paren, crazy jumping style

Review the "Emacs Rocks" video. See More

Top Pro

Enormous range of functionalities (way beyond simple "text editing")

Through its programmability, a very broad range of functionalities can be integrated in emacs, turning it even into a "single point of contact" with the underlying operating system. See More

Top Pro

GTK+ widgets support

Since version 25 you can run GTK widgets inside Emacs buffers. One of these is the WebKitGTK+, which allows the user to run a full-featured web browser inside Emacs with JavaScript and CSS support among other things. See More

Top Pro

Self documenting

Emacs has extensive help support built-in as well as a tutorial accessed with C-h t. See More

Top Pro

Has been widely used for a long time

Top Pro

Ubiquity

Fully compliant GNU-emacs is available on many platforms, and they all understand .emacs configuration files. See More

Top Pro

Not so difficult to learn

It is not Word or notepad but yet, getting from zero to working isn't to hard See More

Top Pro

Lisp customizations

With lisp customization, any behavior of Emacs can be changed. Update with pre-release patch can be also applied without recompiling the whole Emacs. See More

Top Pro

Mini buffer

You can pass complicated arguments in the mini buffer. See More

Top Pro

Rectangular cut and paste

Emacs can select rectangularly. See More

Top Pro

Helm plugin adds even more power to Emacs

Powerful commands, search, and more with the Helm plugin. See More

Vim

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Top Pro

Tons of plugins/add-ons

This makes Vim the definitive resource for every environment (Ruby/Rails, Python, C, etc.), or simply just provides more information in your view. See More

Top Con

High effort to customize

SuperPrower's Experience

I've been using vim for more than half a year now, and I think I won't go back to anything else. Vim is fast, but not in program meaning, but in that I can open file, find what I need to edit, edit it, save and close faster, than any other text editor. I mainly use NeoVim now, but in the core, it's the same thing. See More

Specs

Platforms:Linux, macOS, Windows, Cygwin

License:Vim License

Cross Platform:Yes

Extension language:Vim

Top Pro

Amazing extensibility

Vimscript provides a rich scripting functionality to build upon the core of Vim. When combined with things like Tim Pope's Pathogen plugin management system, it becomes easy to add support for syntax, debugging, build systems, git, and more. See More

Top Con

Difficult learning curve

You'll spend a lot of time learning all the commands and modes supported in Vim. You'll then spend more time tuning settings to your needs. Although once it's tuned to your needs, you can take your .vimrc to any machine you need and have the same experience across all your computers. See More

Eric Tellefsen's Experience

I have been using this cross-platform editor for Solaris, Linux and Windows without cross-platform transition problems. CLI and GUI versions available. Very customizable, large and growing list of useful plugins to extend functionality See More

Top Pro

Extremely portable

Vi/vim exists on almost all Unix-like platforms. It's the de-facto Unix editor and is easily installed on Windows. All you need to make it work is a text-based connection, so it works well for remote machines with slow connections, or when you're too lazy to set up a VNC/Remote Desktop connection. See More

Top Con

Poor feature discoverability

Though basic features like syntax checking, autocompletion, and file management are all available out of the box or with minimal configuration, this is not obvious to new users, who might get intimidated or assume they need to install complex plugins just so they can have this functionality. Other features new users might expect to find embedded in Vim, such as debugging, instead follow a UNIX-style model where they are called as external programs, the output of which might then be parsed by Vim so it can display results. Users not familiar with this paradigm will likely fault Vim for lacking those features as well. See More

TrustingMaahes's Experience

Simple to set up, huge plugin ecosystem See More

Top Pro

Can never outgrow it

The fact that very few, if any, people claim to be a "Vim Master" is a testament to the breadth and depth of Vim. There is always something new to learn - a new, perhaps more efficient, way to use it. This prevents Vim from ever feeling stale. It's always fresh. See More

Top Con

Poor support for external tooling

Many plugins depend on optional Python and Lua features, which may or may not be included in whatever binaries are available for your system. And without platform-specific hacks, it is difficult for plugins to operate in the background or use external tooling. See More

Top Pro

Free and open-source software

Vim is open-source, GPL-compatible charityware. See More

Top Con

No smooth scrolling

Even with the GUI version, the lines jiggle line-by-line. If you are used to smooth scrolling, this is very annoying, especially when working with larger files. See More

Top Pro

Vim encourages discipline

If you use Vim long enough, it will rewire your brain to be more efficient. See More

Top Pro

Excellent performance

As it loads the whole file into RAM, replacing all string occurrences in 100 MB+ files is quick and easy. Every other editor has sort of died during that. It is extremely fast even for cold start. Vim is light-weight and very compact. In terminal, it only uses a small amount of memory and anytime you invoke Vim, it's extremely fast. It's immediate, so much so you can't even notice any time lag. See More

Top Pro

Keyboard-based, mouse-free interface, and trackpad support

There's no need to reach for the mouse or the Ctrl/Alt buttons again. Everything is a mere key press or two away with almost 200 functions specifically for text editing. Vim does support the mouse, but it's designed so you don't have to use it for greater efficiency. Versions of vim, like gVim or MacVim, still allow you to use the mouse and familiar platform shortcuts. That can help ease the learning curve and you'll probably find you won't want to (or need to) use the mouse after a while. See More

Top Pro

By default in Linux

Top Pro

Lightweight and fast

When compared to modern graphical editors like Atom and Brackets (which have underlying HTML5 engines, browsers, Node, etc.), Vim uses a sliver of the system's memory and it loads instantly, all the while delivering the same features. Vim is also faster than Emacs. See More

Top Pro

Works in terminal over SSH

Unlike other editors such as Sublime Text, Vim is a command line editor and hence can be used in remote development environments like Chromebooks via SSH. See More

Top Pro

Great productivity

Vim's keyset is mainly restricted to the alphanumeric keys and the escape key. This is an enduring relic of its teletype heritage, but has the effect of making most of Vim's functionality accessible without frequent awkward finger reaches. See More

Top Pro

Everything is mnemonic

No need to memorize different key combinations for things like deleting the text inside of a block or deleting the text inside of a pair of quotes. It's just a series of actions, or nouns and verbs, or however you prefer to think about it. If you want to delete, you select "d"; if you want it to happen inside something, you select "i"; and if you want the surrounding double-quotes, just select ". But if you were changing the text, or copying it, or anything else, you'd still use the same "i" and ". This makes it very easy to remember a large number of different extremely useful commands, without the effort it takes to remember all of the Emacs "magic incantations", for example. See More

Top Pro

Flexible feature-set

Vim allows users to include many features found in IDEs and competing editors, but does not force them all on the user. This not only helps keep it lighter in weight than a lot of other options, but it also helps ensure that some unused features will not get in the way. See More

Top Pro

Macros increase productivity

Many text editors have programmable macros, but since Vim is keyboard-based, your programmed macros are usually far more predictable and easier to understand. See More

Top Pro

Useful undo features

Vim does not only offer unlimited undo levels, later releases support an undo tree. It eventually gives the editor VCS-like features. You can undo the current file to any point in the past, even if a change was already undone again. Another neat feature is persistent undo, which enables to undo changes after the file was closed and reopened again. See More

Top Pro

Multiple clipboards

It is called "registers". See More

Top Pro

Productivity enhancing modal paradigm

As with all vi-like editors, Vim provides a modal paradigm for text editing and processing that provides a rich syntax and semantic model for composing succinct, powerful commands. While this requires some initial investment in learning how it works in order to take full advantage of its capabilities, it rewards the user well in the long run. This modal interface paradigm also lends itself surprisingly well to many other types of applications that can be controlled by vi-like keybindings, such as browsers, image viewers, media players, network clients (for email and other communication media), and window managers. Even shells (including zsh, tcsh, mksh, and bash, among others) come with vi-like keybinding features that can greatly enhance user comfort and efficiency when the user is familiar with the vi modal editing paradigm. See More

Top Pro

Once learned, it's very hard to forget

Vim's somewhat steep learning curve is more than made up for once you've mastered a few basic concepts and learned the tricks that allow you to program faster with fewer cut/paste mistakes. See More

Top Pro

Has multiple distinct editing modes

Interaction with Vim is centered around several "modes", where purpose and keybindings differ in each. Insert mode is for entering text. This mode most resembles traditional text entry in most editors. Normal mode (the default) is entered by hitting ESC and converts all keybindings to center around movement within the file, search, pane selection, etc. Command mode is entered by hitting ":" in Normal mode and allows you to execute Vim commands and scripts similar in fashion to a shell. Visual mode is for selecting lines, blocks, and characters of code. Those are the major modes, and several more exist depending on what one defines as a "mode" in Vim. See More

Top Pro

Vimtutor

Vimtutor is an excellent interactive tutorial for people with no prior experience of Vim. It takes about 30 minutes to complete. See More

Top Pro

Can set up keymapping

Top Pro

If you can use Vim you can also use vi

Top Pro

Donations and support to Vim.org helps children in Uganda through ICCF Holland

Top Pro

Asynchronous I/O support

Since Vim 8, Vim can exchange characters with background processes asynchronously. This avoids the problem of the text editor getting stuck when a plugin that had to communicate with a server was running. Now plugins can send and receive data from external scripts without forcing Vim to freeze. See More

Top Pro

Built-in package management

Starting with Vim 8, a package manager has been built into Vim. The package manager helps keep track of installed plugins, their versions and also only loads the needed plugins on startup depending on the file type. See More

Top Pro

Has been supported for a long time and will be supported for many years to come

Top Pro

Usable from a Terminal or with a GUI (GVim, MacVim)

If you happen to be logged into SSH, you can use Vim in a terminal. It can also run with a GUI too. See More

Neovim

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Top Pro

Modern code base

As a refactor over Vim, Neovim has greatly improved its code base. For example, some functionality is handled by libuv, the same code base that powers Node.js. See More

Top Con

Not fully vim compatible

Some vim plugins aren't fully compatible with nvim. Switching over isn't completely painless as a result. See More

SuperPrower's Experience

NeoVim is daring fork of Vim, and despite the fact that a lot of features made their way back into Vim 8, I am now using NeoVim. There isn't a lot of differences, but there is quite a few plugins that were developed specifically for NeoVim that I like very much. See More

Specs

Platforms:Linux, Windows, macOS, *nix, Android

Cross Platform:Yes

Bracket Matching:Yes

Top Pro

Active development community

Top Con

No stable release yet

As of yet, Neovim is in an unstable point in it's development. There is no stable release and using it for the moment should be done with caution as many features may change in the future. See More

TruthfulAequitas's Experience

It's a nice attempt to make Vim better, but I would stick with Vim for basic editing and with Spacemacs for a more advanced experience. See More

Top Pro

Async plugin execution

TrustingMaahes's Experience

A nice upgrade over vim See More

Top Pro

Plugins don't require vimL/vimscript

nvim supports plugins written in lua (and many other languages!). VimL is an awkward language to write plugins in, switching it out for other languages was a great call. Despite the fact that Vim can also have python-based plugins, NeoVim can do much more and much better. See More

Top Pro

Still Vim but with upgraded features and some issues fixed

NeoVim was a complete rewrite of Vim, with new features added and underlying issues resolved thanks to the Vim code base. The keybindings and configuration are the same as Vim, so the switch can be pretty simple. See More

Top Pro

Better integration with external tools

The core text editor is "headless", meaning it's detached from the user-interface so other programs can hook into it. This enables better integration with IDEs and browsers, where "Vim mode" has typically been a poor substitute because it was a partial rewrite or a partial port at best. One of the advantages of Vim has always been ubiquity and Neovim makes it even more ubiquitous. See More

Top Pro

Built-in terminal emulator

This avoids the user having to make any installations. See More

Top Pro

UI Agnostic

The core functionality is handled apart from the UI, meaning that Neovim can be embedded into any other GUI system, such as Atom. See More

Top Pro

Powerful plugin model

Vim plugins have always been useful, but tied to specific languages. Neovim's architecture provides better separation between plugins and the core product, so that plugins are completely flexible and can be written in any language. See More

Top Pro

Terminal mode is very convenient for testing code in a split window.

Top Pro

Opens a 3Gig Text File in a few seconds

Not many editors can open such a large text file so quickly. See More

Top Pro

Comes with some good configurations out of the box

Some typical configurations most of VIM users make are default in Neovim. See More

Sublime Text

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Top Pro

Comfortable to work with

Sublime Text has a minimap on the side that provides a top-down view of the file and keyboard shortcuts for most actions. It also supports a large number of languages and general text editing features out of the box. See More

Specs

Platforms:Windows; macOS; Linux

License:Proprietary

Cross Platform:Yes

Bracket Matching:Yes

Top Pro

Functionality can be easily extended

Sublime Text uses TextMate's syntax declaration files to support new languages, it has all its menus and keybindings generated from JSON files, and it can be scripted to add new features using Python. If Sublime Text doesn't support a desired language or feature, it's usually not long before someone implements it themselves - examples include the plugin package manager and the 'open in browser' command. See More

Top Pro

Lightweight

Sublime Text is very lightweight by default. Customization occurs on the fly thanks to Package Control. See More

Spacemacs

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Top Pro

VIM Keybindings with EMACS ecosystem

EMACS ecosystem and language support is best in show. The EMACS is a great IDE that was in search of a good text editor. Spacemacs makes EMACS have a good text editor. See More

TruthfulAequitas's Experience

Outshines Emacs and Vim by mixing them together. See More

Specs

Platforms:GNU/Linux, MacOS, Windows

Cross Platform:Yes

Bracket Matching:Yes

Top Pro

Preconfigured emacs distro

Spacemacs is just a well-configured Emacs distribution with community-sourced best in class plugins and layers selected to take the setup pain out of Emacs. Evil mode gives the Vim bindings and modes for fast editing, while Helm makes everything discoverable to make learning to be more productive simple and unintrusive. See More

DeliberateGration's Experience

Spacemacs has the best features of both VI and emacs, coupled with a nice configuration system. See More

Top Pro

SPC is used as leading key

Light Table

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Top Pro

Your code runs live as you write it

The "Watches" feature lets you see your code running live as you type it. This means that you can debug your code live while writing it, which leads to considerably less programming errors. See More

Specs

Platforms:Windows, Linux, Mac

Collaborative editing:No

Supported keybinding styles:IBM CUA, Vim (plug-in); Emacs (plug-in),

Top Pro

Plugin manager available

LT has a plugin manager built directly inside of it. This plugin manager connects to LT's own registry of plugins, so whenever you want assistance while writing your HTML, JS, or even Python, just open up the plugin manager, search for it, and click the little install button beside it's name. Your plugin will then be installed. See More

Top Pro

Inline evaluation

With LT's inline evaluation, you don't have to re-compile your whole source file. Each time you want to see an output, all you have to do is hover your cursor over the line you'd like to evaluate and press ctrl+enter; LT will evaluate that line of code for you. See More

Atom

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Top Con

Very slow startup time

Atom is very slow to startup, which is a big disadvantage if you are accustomed to using it to make quick changes on your files. See More

Top Pro

Extensive list of packages

Atom has a built-in package manager and an extensive list of packages. Packages are written in CoffeeScript. See More

Specs

Platforms:Microsoft Windows®, macOS, Linux

Cross Platform:Yes

Bracket Matching:Yes (plugin)

Top Con

High memory usage

Atom has a relatively high memory usage, especially when compared to some other text editors not based on Electron. For those who develop on the go, this also tends to mean shorter battery life. See More

Top Pro

Free and open source

Atom is free, open source, and written in C++, LESS, and CoffeeScript. See More

Top Con

Has difficulty with large text files

Tends to crash or hang with large >(10MB) text files, making it less useful as a general text editor. See More

Top Pro

Beginner friendly

One of the goals of Atom is to be a text editor for both experienced and beginner programmers. You can add keyboard shortcuts, change themes, install plugins, and change core settings by clicking through a GUI, or by manually editing config files the old-fashioned way. It has the added advantage of being built using the same engine that powers Google Chrome, so actions like opening and closing tabs feel familiar, even to new or non-programmers. See More

Top Con

Bloated. Too many packages, too little productivity.

Unable to use package to even convert a C file to PDF. See More

Top Pro

Extendable

Due to its modular design, almost any aspect of the editor can be changed. Even seemingly core packages, like those taking care of search and replace functionality, can be forked on GitHub, and changed and replaced in the editor. The documentation for creating new plugins is also great, making it easier for developers to jump in and create plugins for Atom. See More

Top Con

Not known when a new window will open

It's not really clear why and when a new window is opened when you open a file out of the tree view. See More

Top Pro

Built-in package management

Atom was built from the ground up with the community in mind. Package management is therefore a first class feature. See More

Top Con

Not suitable for older computers

Atom requires a lot of system resources to run, so it will most probably be painfully slow on an older machine. See More

Top Pro

Multiplatform

Atom can run on Mac, Windows, and Linux. See More

Top Con

Slows down exponentially with plugins

Extending it needs sacrificing responsiveness See More

Top Pro

Vim plugin turns Atom into a modernized vim

Top Con

No text UI

Top Pro

Best support for Arduino with Platformio

Arduino is the most important platform for developing embedded systems. See More

Top Pro

Node.js integration

The editor is built on top of Node. As such anything that can be done in Node can be done in the editor. See More

Top Pro

Modern feel and very customizable and extendable

Top Pro

HiDPI support

Atom has built-in HiDPI support with zero scaling issues. See More

Top Pro

Themes

You can theme and customize Atom to your liking. See More

Top Pro

Command line integration out of the box

Installing Atom adds two command line commands - atom and apm. The first one runs the application itself while the second is the Atom Package Manager that's used to add and remove various components from the package listing. While these features can be set up with other editors as well, Atom takes care of them out of the box. See More

Top Pro

Allows for instant file switching

By pressing Ctrl or Command + T and using fuzzy search, you can look for a file in your project. See More

Top Pro

Command Palette support

The Command Palette permits fuzzy searching all available functions, settings, snippets, etc. See More

Top Pro

Multi-line select and edit

Multiple cursors and column selection allow for versatile ways of editing. ctrl + d will select the current word and each time the command is repeated, it adds the next occurrence of the word to the selection. ctrl + click or middle-mouse click will place another cursor in the place that's clicked. Cursors can then be controlled together. This also allows for selecting vertically. See More

Top Pro

Embedded Git control

Atom will highlight folders, files, and lines that have any uncommitted edits made. It also integrates really well with GitHub. See More

Howl

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Top Pro

The editor source code can be changed easily

Written mostly in Lua (or Moonscript) and includes LuaJIT. See More

Specs

Platforms:Windows; OSX; *nix

Cross Platform:Yes

Bracket Matching:Yes

Top Pro

The editor source code can be changed easily

Written (mostly) in Lua and includes LuaJIT. See More

Top Pro

Easy to extend

Plugins (bundles) can be written in Lua or MoonScript. See More

Top Pro

Open source

Howl is an open source project and is actively developed on GitHub(howl-editor/howl). It has a MIT license. See More

Top Pro

Keyboard driven

You don't need the mouse to use Howl. Everything can be accomplished with commands and shortcuts. See More

Top Pro

Fast startup

It's extremely lightweight, making it start up pretty quickly. See More

Top Pro

Easy to use

Howl is very intuitive and easy to use. See More

Vis

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Top Pro

Supports multiple cursors

DependablePkharmat's Experience

Vis is by far the most reliable text editor with vim-like keybindings. It process all kinds of files fastly. See More

Micro (editor)

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Top Pro

Lua for scripting

Rasa

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wi

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