Firepad

Firepad is an open-source, collaborative code and text editor. It is designed to be embedded inside larger web applications.

Live Demo

Visit firepad.io to see a live demo of Firepad in rich text mode, or the examples page to see it setup for collaborative code editing.

Setup

Firepad uses Firebase as a backend, so it requires no server-side code. It can be added to any web app by including a few JavaScript files

<!-- Firebase -->
<script src="https://cdn.firebase.com/js/client/2.2.4/firebase.js"></script>

<!-- CodeMirror -->
<script src="https://cdnjs.cloudflare.com/ajax/libs/codemirror/5.2.0/codemirror.js"></script>
<link rel="stylesheet" href="https://cdnjs.cloudflare.com/ajax/libs/codemirror/5.2.0/codemirror.css"/>

<!-- Firepad -->
<link rel="stylesheet" href="https://cdn.firebase.com/libs/firepad/1.3.0/firepad.css" />
<script src="https://cdn.firebase.com/libs/firepad/1.3.0/firepad.min.js"></script>

and calling an init function.

<div id="firepad"></div>
<script>
  var firepadRef = new Firebase('<FIREBASE URL>');
  var codeMirror = CodeMirror(document.getElementById('firepad'), { lineWrapping: true });
  var firepad = Firepad.fromCodeMirror(firepadRef, codeMirror,
      { richTextShortcuts: true, richTextToolbar: true, defaultText: 'Hello, World!' });
</script>

Firepad supports rich text editing with CodeMirror and code editing via ACE. Check out the detailed setup instructions at firepad.io/docs.

What's Here

Here are some highlights of the directory structure and notable source files:

• dist/ - output directory for all files generated by grunt (firepad.js, firepad.min.js, firepad.css, firepad.eot).
• examples/ - examples of embedding Firepad.
• font/ - icon font used for rich text toolbar.
• lib/
  • firepad.js - Entry point for Firepad.
  • text-operation.js, client.js - Heart of the Operation Transformation implementation. Based on ot.js but extended to allow arbitrary attributes on text (for representing rich-text).
  • annotation-list.js - A data model for representing annotations on text (i.e. spans of text with a particular set of attributes).
  • rich-text-codemirror.js - Uses AnnotationList to track annotations on the text and maintain the appropriate set of markers on a CodeMirror instance.
  • firebase-adapter.js - Handles integration with Firebase (appending operations, triggering retries, presence, etc.).
• test/ - Jasmine tests for Firepad (many of these were borrowed from ot.js).

Contributing

We love pull requests. If you'd like to contribute to Firepad, run the following commands to get your environment set up:

$ git clone https://github.com/firebase/firepad.git
$ cd firepad                # go to the firepad directory
$ npm install -g grunt-cli  # globally install grunt task runner
$ npm install -g bower      # globally install Bower package manager
$ npm install               # install local npm build / test dependencies
$ bower install             # install local JavaScript dependencies
$ grunt coffee              # build coffee once initially (so tests will work)
$ grunt watch               # watch for source file changes

grunt watch will watch for changes in the /lib/ directory and lint, concatenate, and minify the source files when a change occurs. The output files are written to the /dist/ directory.

You can run the test suite by navigating to file:///path/to/firepad/test/index.html or via the command line using grunt test.

Getting Started with Firebase

Firepad stores its data in a Firebase database. You can sign up here for a free Firebase account.

Getting Help

Join our Firepad Google Group to ask questions, request features, or share your Firepad apps with the community.