Early last month, we released a pair programming solution, CodeTogether. The current release supports both Eclipse and VS Code, with IntelliJ support coming soon (Update: IntelliJ support now available). If you missed our announcement, let me give you a quick overview. With CodeTogether, you can set up a pair programming session in seconds, from your existing IDE, and your colleagues can join your session from any modern browser. They get an IDE-like experience, with everything from super-fast editing with content assist, to advanced navigation and code validation … yes, IN THE BROWSER! Take a few minutes to look at this video to see what CodeTogether can do:
We realize many of you are working from home and may find it difficult collaborating with your team, especially when you have to code together but can only rely on ill-fitting/frustrating screen sharing solutions. We’d like to help in the fight against the COVID-19 pandemic by keeping all CodeTogether features free while we combat this global threat together. CodeTogether takes only a few minutes to install and you can have a pair programming session going in no time – feel free to give it a try right away.
Over the last month, we’ve been hard at work on improving CodeTogether with feedback from our growing base of happy (and relieved) users. We’ve just put out a new release with improved control visualization, themes and a number of reliability and usability fixes – read on for the deets.
The ability to easily see where your colleagues are as you work on the same piece of code together in a pair programming session has been a popular request. The selections and edits of the person who currently has control are now specially visualized, and can be seen by all other members of the session – in the browser, and in the IDE as well.
We don’t force you to go dark anymore – this release adds a light theme in the browser, and a high contrast dark theme as well.
On the browser side, use Ctrl/Cmd + K C to get control, and Ctrl/Cmd + K F to follow/unfollow the host. It’s easier than using the toolbar toggles, and especially useful when you’ve maximized the editor in the browser. Remember, you can follow other participants instead of the host using the Presence view, and the host can regain control by simply typing. Do read our documentation for more details.
This release also includes a number of other reliability fixes like improved editing consistency and proper relaying of intra-line selections. Refer to the delivery log for details.
We’ve been making updates to CodeTogether fairly frequently and don’t want you to miss out on key enhancements and fixes. For future releases, when an update is available, we’ll let you know what’s coming. While not always necessary, we always recommend updating the host to the latest version for the best code sharing experience.
As always, if you have any feedback or comments, please reach out to us on Twitter or drop in for a chat with our team in our Gitter CodeTogether Community. And if you haven’t tried CodeTogether yet, check it out – it’s free!
