Collabedit is a feature loaded free online real-time collaborative code editor with built in chat. Extremely easy to use, Collabedit lets you collaborate with your friends on coding projects in real-time, from the comfort of your browser. There are no sign-ups, accounts, or anything of that sort required. All you have to do is start typing code, and invite others to collaborate on it via a unique sharing URL.
Collabedit’s intuitive online code editor supports a fairly sizeable number of programming languages, including popular names such as C, C++, Java, JavaScript, Python, Perl, Ruby, SQL, Visual Basic and XML. It also includes features such as syntax highlighting and document history.
But probably the best part is the built in chat module, that lets you chat with the collaborators in real-time, without leaving the code editor pane.
How to use Collabedit’s online real-time collaborative code editor with built-in chat?
As mentioned in the beginning of the article, one of the best things about using Collabedit is the fact that it’s completely usable inside your browser (And why wouldn’t it be, its a friggin’ website after all). This means that there isn’t anything to download or configure. Heck, you don’t even need to create a free account. Just go to Collabedit’s homepage, and start doing your thing. In any case, the following step by step tutorial should serve you just fine:
Step 1: Hop over to Collabedit’s homepage, and click the big Orange button saying Create a New Document on the right. Once you do that, a pop-up will ask you to enter a name (for identifying you in the chat pane). Enter the name and hit OK.
Step 2: That’s it! Once you hit OK, Collabedit’s online code editor will start-up immediately. It’s a simple editor that that you can instantly start typing away on. To its right, there’s a couple of options and fields. For example, you can choose the programming language that you’re typing your code in (for the syntax highlighting) from the drop down menu. Apart from that, you can see the names of all the active collaborators working on the document, as well as the simplistic built-in chat pane. Check out the screenshot below:
Step 3: As Collabedit’s name itself makes it clear, the signature feature of this online code editor is its collaborative capability. This means that more than one users can edit the document at the same time. Using Collabedit for collaborative code editing is super simple. To do so, all you have to do is copy the collaborative document’s unique URL (displayed in the URL bar of the browser), and share it with the person(s) whom you want to invite for collaborating over the document. Once they click on the link, they can simply enter a name, and start working on the document. Here’s a screenshot:
As illustrated above, once the other collaborator joins and starts editing the document, his/her name gets added to the Collaborators list. Now that multiple users are collaborating on the same document in real-time, you can use the built-in chat module as well. All you (and the other collaborators) have to do is, type away the messages in the box labeled Chat Here, and the messages would appear with their name stamps in the Chat box. Pretty rad, don’t you think?
Also See: Collaborative Code Editor To Code Together In Real-Time.
Conclusion
Collabedit is an incredible free online real-time collaborative code editor with built in chat. It’s extremely easy to use, and works just about anywhere. All you need is a browser and a network connection. Add to it features such as support for almost all major programming languages, syntax highlighting, built in chat etc., and Collabedit gets even more amazing. Do give it a try, it just might be what you need for your next coding project.
