Writing Plugins

Lite XL allows users to load Lua files to add or modify functionalities of the editor. In general, a plugin is a Lua file or a directory that contains an init.lua file serving as the entrypoint. Plugins can load other Lua files or native libraries that can be used to call system functions, but are responsible for managing their own dependencies.

Overriding existing functionality

Lite XL heavily uses the idiom of overriding existing function that does a certain task. For instance, to run something when the user saves a file, you can override Doc:save() to add your own functionality before or after calling the original Doc:save() function. This design makes plugin code generally easier to tinker with, but gets complex when the user installs a bunch of plugins that doesn't interact with each other well. This is a trade-off lite and Lite XL made for the sake of simplicity.

Native libraries

Lite XL, since v2.1.0, supports loading shared libraries (also known as dynamically-linked libraries on Windows) to provide functionalities that are not available with Lite XL's own native bindings. Lite XL uses Lua's convention for these libraries, but extends the convention to support statically-linked Lua in Lite XL.

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