collaborative-text-editor

This is a repository for my second Node.js project: a real-time collaborative text editor. I have previously attempted to implement something similar in a LAMP project, but found great difficulty in doing so. However, Node (with some nice extensions) makes this a breeze.

It currently uses a simple <textarea> element that multiple users can update at once.

Creating the Node.js project

I made a project directory, and changed into it:

mkdir -p Node.js/collaborative-text-editor
cd Node.js/collaborative-text-editor

I then generated a license file, a relevant .gitignore and a Contributor Covenenant:

npx license

npx gitignore node
npx covgen [email protected]

Finally, I initialised a new npm package:

npm init

Installing Node.js packages

I also used npm to install express and socket.io:

npm install express
npm install socket.io

express is the most popular Node web framework, and socket.io enables real-time bidirectional event-based communication.