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+Title: Apache Velocity Engine
+
+# Apache Velocity
+
+Welcome to Apache Velocity Engine! Apache Velocity is a general purpose
+template engine written in Java. For more information about Velocity,
+please look at the HTML documentation on the [Velocity web site](http://velocity.apache.org/index.html).
+
+Here's a description of the top level directories:
+
+    velocity-engine-core/       The Velocity Engine core module
+    velocity-engine-examples/   Several simple examples
+    velocity-engine-scripting/  JSR-223 implementation for Velocity scripting
+    spring-velocity-support     Velocity Engine factory bean for Spring framework
+    src/                        Source for parent modules, mainly changelog
+
+## REQUIREMENTS
+
+Apache Velocity 2.2 will run with any Java runtime engine v1.8 or greater.
+
+Building from source requires Java development kit v1.8 or greater and Maven 3 (3.0.5+).
+
+At compile time, Maven should fetch all engine needed dependencies, which are:
+
+* commons-lang v3.9
+* slf4j-api v1.7.30
+
+plus the following ones, needed for the integrated tests:
+
+* slf4j-simple v1.7.30
+* junit v4.13
+* hsqldb v2.5.0
+* commons-io 2.8.0
+
+At runtime, Velocity only needs:
+
+* commons-lang v3.9+
+* slf4j-api and an slf4j binding, v1.7.30+
+
+## BUILDING APACHE VELOCITY
+
+In order to use the latest version of Apache Velocity, you may want to
+build it.
+
+Building is easy.  All components necessary to build are included or
+get downloaded from the internet during the build, except for the Java
+ SDK and the Maven build tool. You can find details online on [how to build
+Velocity](http://velocity.apache.org/engine/devel/build.html).
+
+*IMPORTANT* As the Apache Velocity build process wants to download a
+number of jars from the internet, you must be online when you are
+building for the first time.
+
+To build Velocity's jar, just run maven using the command:
+
+    mvn
+
+This will create a target/ directory containing the Velocity .jar
+file in each sub-module directory.
+
+Be sure to update your classpath to include Velocity's .jar
+file, or when using a modern servlet container, put it in the
+WEB-INF/lib directory.
+
+## CUSTOMIZING THE PARSER
+
+Since 2.2, it's possible to [build a custom parser](http://velocity.apache.org/engine/2.2/developer-guide.html#customizing-the-vtl-parser), to change some of the characters used by in the VTL syntax: `*`, `@`, `$` and `#`.
+
+Let's say you want to merge some templatized jQuery code full of `$` characters, you can for instance build you own parser which will use the `§` character as references prefix instead of `$`.
+
+## TRYING THE EXAMPLES
+
+After building Velocity, you can also build the examples that are
+included with the Velocity distribution. These examples show how to
+use Velocity in your Java applications.
+
+For more information, please see the [examples README](velocity-engine-examples) in the `velocity-engine-examples` directory.
+
+___
+
+- The Apache Velocity Team
+