Synchronous Collaborative Text Document Editing Online: MoonEdit

Have you ever experienced the frustration that comes from working collaboratively on a text document with other authors and revisors? Version control can become pretty confusing and 'show mark-up' editing trackers can easily clutter up your view of the document to the point that it becomes very hard to understand what's in it.

How about editing collaboratively a text document online, just like a wiki allows, but with the advantage of doing this concurrently with other people while being able to see their work changes instantly?

Did you ever dream of being able to see every concurrent editor text cursor displayed in real-tine while editing together a document?

MoonEdit, Tom Dobrowolski's free multi-platform collaborative text editor, does all of that by allowing multiple users to work on a text document in real-time.

 

 

Here is what MoonEdit has to offer to facilitate the collaborative text editing of documents online:

• Cooperative multi-user text editing over the internet.
  Every co-author can edit the shared document at any time, from any place, and concurrently with the other users. No need to send files via FTP or to compare documents when multiple users need to make changes to it independently.


• Multiple text cursors visible on the screen.
  Every user has his/her own cursor with a unique color. Every cursor movement and each single text change is visible on the screen in real-time by all users connected to MoonEdit.


• Remote text editing without latency.
  "ME" (MoonEdit) makes remote text editing a truly real-time activity by using local prediction code - the same technology used in modern video games. Remote users can concurrently edit text files using the "me" client. This functionality can be even utilized for creating websites directly on a web server -which could be, in certain situations, easier and more efficient than editing files privately and then uploading them via FTP. MoonEdit could even be used as a real-time text forum.



• Users can view the history of changes from a multi-user edit session.
  This is especially useful if you want to check out what other users have changed inside the document since your last access to it.


• Keyboard typing sound simulation.
  With this, you don't need to move your eyes to know when someone else is making changes to the document: you can hear it!


• Built-in calculator and music sequencer.
  To solve complex mathematical expression, just type it as normal text and press Ctrl+Enter. But here is probably one of the most interesting ME features: collaborative multi-track music edit. Enter music score using simple text format, and play it using your own or built-in samples.

Click above image to enlarge it

MoonEdit requires access to a Web server and the installation of MoonEdit on the server itself.

MoonEdit is free for non-commercial use.

Check out the Movie (2MB. QuickTime needed).