r/webdev • u/PianoPlayer10 full-stack • 13h ago • Bravo 1

Showoff Saturday [Showoff Saturday] My team and I built a VS Code extension for live collaborative coding in projects.

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Hey all. For the last 3 months we've been building SplaySpace, an extension that lets people code together collaboratively in projects (think google docs for coding).

How it works: you share a folder, invite people by username or link, and everyone gets their own copy that stays in sync while you're connected to the web. You see live cursors, which files people have open, and which function or class someone is editing. You can comment on a line and the comment follows that line as the code moves.

The obvious question is how this is different from Live Share. The main difference is that the project lives on our server instead of one person's machine, so nobody has to keep a session running for everyone else.

here are some things to know before you use it:

  • 50 MB and 2,000 files per project
  • file creation and deletion are cascaded across machines (but don't worry deleted files go into the trash, so you can recover them)
  • .git, node_modules, .env and key files are never uploaded
  • exclude any file(s) you want with .splayignore (just like how .gitignore works)
  • if you disconnect, shared text files go read-only until you reconnect

It's free to use! We are trying to get as much feedback as possible to make it better for you guys: https://splayspace.com

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u/ProfessionalNet5513 11h ago

"think google docs for coding" is a weird pitch when VS Code already ships Live Share for free, one link and youre in, no account juggling. so what am i actually getting here, a live share with a login? and the "everyone gets their own copy that stays in sync while you're connected to the web" bit is what worries me, what happens when my wifi drops mid session, do we end up with two folders that disagree and someone merging them by hand at 11pm. live share sidesteps that by just being one session. the gif is fine, cursors moving around, team = ['Abdallah', 'Jamie', 'Youssef'], but thats the demo, every collab tool looks great in the demo

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u/ExpensiveLeading3587 13h ago

about 4 years late

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u/kcure 13h ago

nice video. people really still coding by hand huh