Show HN: A Collaborative Code Editor (like EtherPad with Syntax Highlighting)

#1

Post by werg » Mon, Feb 20, 2012, 4:33 PM UTC

Show HN: A Collaborative Code Editor (like EtherPad with Syntax Highlighting)
snucode.com

Re: Show HN: A Collaborative Code Editor (like EtherPad with Syntax Highlighting)

#2

Post by werg » Mon, Feb 20, 2012, 4:41 PM UTC

So I started building this as a coding exercise for an interview, I'd particularly be interested in getting feedback on my approach to Operational Transformation: http://gpickard.wordpress.com/2012/02/17/my-approach-to-oper...

Re: Show HN: A Collaborative Code Editor (like EtherPad with Syntax Highlighting)

#3

Post by fudged » Mon, Feb 20, 2012, 5:24 PM UTC

I've been looking for something similar for a long time. But this has a lot of issues.

Problems:

1. You don't have any syntax highlighting for Java, C, C++, etc? These are very popular languages.

2. My browser's (Chrome, OSX) spell-checker underlines everything in the editor, which is extraordinarily distracting.

3. Some common text-entry keyboard shortcuts don't work (ex. Command+Delete)

4. Needs some privacy and sharing options.

5. From my experience with other collaborative editors, it also needs a way to download the document from the command line.

Re: Show HN: A Collaborative Code Editor (like EtherPad with Syntax Highlighting)

#4

Post by edd » Mon, Feb 20, 2012, 5:29 PM UTC

Once it finishes loading it completely breaks my browsers back button.

Re: Show HN: A Collaborative Code Editor (like EtherPad with Syntax Highlighting)

#5

Post by werg » Mon, Feb 20, 2012, 5:32 PM UTC

fudged wrote: post #3

I've been looking for something similar for a long time. But this has a lot of issues. Problems: 1. You don't have any syntax highlighting for Java, C, C++, etc? These are very popular languages. 2. My browser's (Chrome, OSX) spell-checker underlines everything in the editor, which is extraordinarily distracting. 3. Some common text-entry keyboard shortcuts don't work (ex. Command+Delete) 4. Needs some privacy and sh…

Yes, problems abound :)

1. In fact, there is syntax highlighting for all the C-like languages, it's the mode called 'clike'. I guess that label isn't so very fortunate 2. Oh actually, the underlining has been added by me as a means to do author attribution. I should add a checkbox to turn it on and off. Before I had had the text background in various colors but I found that to be an even worse distraction. 3. The keyboard shortcuts are tricky. I'll have to delve into that a bit more (and test across platforms). 4. So obviously for now it's just security-by-obscurity. For now you can take the sourcecode and host it somewhere private. I left out explicit user account management in order to get the first version out the door. 5. Hmm. that's a very interesting thought! It should be fairly easy to build a small command-line tool to upload and download files.

Thanks for the feedback!

Re: Show HN: A Collaborative Code Editor (like EtherPad with Syntax Highlighting)

#6

Post by werg » Mon, Feb 20, 2012, 5:33 PM UTC

edd wrote: post #4

Once it finishes loading it completely breaks my browsers back button.

Exactly, I just noticed that in terror :) Am working on it... Has to do with the way Backbone.js handles pushState I think,, and the way I handle Backbone's router thingy.

Re: Show HN: A Collaborative Code Editor (like EtherPad with Syntax Highlighting)

#7

Post by fudged » Mon, Feb 20, 2012, 5:44 PM UTC

werg wrote: post #5

fudged wrote: post #3

I've been looking for something similar for a long time. But this has a lot of issues. Problems: 1. You don't have any syntax highlighting for Java, C, C++, etc? These are very popular languages. 2. My browser's (Chrome, OSX) spell-checker underlines everything in the editor, which is extraordinarily distracting. 3. Some common text-entry keyboard shortcuts don't work (ex. Command+Delete) 4. Needs some privacy and sh…

Yes, problems abound :) 1. In fact, there is syntax highlighting for all the C-like languages, it's the mode called 'clike'. I guess that label isn't so very fortunate 2. Oh actually, the underlining has been added by me as a means to do author attribution. I should add a checkbox to turn it on and off. Before I had had the text background in various colors but I found that to be an even worse distraction. 3. The key…

As a newb, I thought clike was an esoteric language I'd never heard of :) The underlines are a good idea for attribution, perhaps make them straight instead of squiggly, and drop the opacity? I'm not sure.

As for the CLI interface, I was just referring to wget/curl on a specific URL to download the file. If you add in passwords on documents, make sure this is supported in your wget/curl implementation. There was another site that I tried this on, and they hadn't considered this despite having access through wget/curl.

Re: Show HN: A Collaborative Code Editor (like EtherPad with Syntax Highlighting)

#8

Post by lubutu » Mon, Feb 20, 2012, 5:52 PM UTC

fudged wrote: post #3

I've been looking for something similar for a long time. But this has a lot of issues. Problems: 1. You don't have any syntax highlighting for Java, C, C++, etc? These are very popular languages. 2. My browser's (Chrome, OSX) spell-checker underlines everything in the editor, which is extraordinarily distracting. 3. Some common text-entry keyboard shortcuts don't work (ex. Command+Delete) 4. Needs some privacy and sh…

May I add, font-size: 7pt? I genuinely cannot read any of the text on this page. Please just let the user decide the best font size for them.

Re: Show HN: A Collaborative Code Editor (like EtherPad with Syntax Highlighting)

#9

Post by werg » Mon, Feb 20, 2012, 5:57 PM UTC

lubutu wrote: post #8

fudged wrote: post #3

I've been looking for something similar for a long time. But this has a lot of issues. Problems: 1. You don't have any syntax highlighting for Java, C, C++, etc? These are very popular languages. 2. My browser's (Chrome, OSX) spell-checker underlines everything in the editor, which is extraordinarily distracting. 3. Some common text-entry keyboard shortcuts don't work (ex. Command+Delete) 4. Needs some privacy and sh…

May I add, font-size: 7pt ? I genuinely cannot read any of the text on this page. Please just let the user decide the best font size for them.

Sure. Before I had an way to hide the footer I set it to small text so as to minimize distractions. Should set it back.

Re: Show HN: A Collaborative Code Editor (like EtherPad with Syntax Highlighting)

#10

Post by xymostech » Mon, Feb 20, 2012, 6:20 PM UTC

fudged wrote: post #7

werg wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, problems abound :) 1. In fact, there is syntax highlighting for all the C-like languages, it's the mode called 'clike'. I guess that label isn't so very fortunate 2. Oh actually, the underlining has been added by me as a means to do author attribution. I should add a checkbox to turn it on and off. Before I had had the text background in various colors but I found that to be an even worse distraction. 3. The key…

As a newb, I thought clike was an esoteric language I'd never heard of :) The underlines are a good idea for attribution, perhaps make them straight instead of squiggly, and drop the opacity? I'm not sure. As for the CLI interface, I was just referring to wget/curl on a specific URL to download the file. If you add in passwords on documents, make sure this is supported in your wget/curl implementation. There was anot…

What browser are you using? In Chrome 19 dev, I'm not getting squiggly lines, I'm getting some sort of randomly dashed lines, which are very annoying.

If the underlines were less distracting, I think this would be really wonderful!