Floobits Vim Plugin

Real-time collaborative editing. Think Etherpad, but with native editors. This is the plugin for Vim. We also have plugins for Emacs, Sublime Text, and IntelliJ, as well as a web-based editor that supports video chat and screen sharing.

Development status: fairly stable, but conflicts with some Vim features such as keymaps and leader key.

Unfortunately, Vim's plugin API has few options for running event-driven code. We've figured out two ways, which are described below. Floobits will fall back to the second method if something goes wrong with the first.

1. Vim Server and --remote-expr (Recommended)

To take advantage of this method, you should launch Vim as a server. Some versions of Vim do this automatically, like MacVim. On others, you may need to invoke Vim like so:

vim --servername superawesomename

You will also need to define vim_executable executable_name in your ~/.floorc file. If you use MacVim, your floorc should contain the line:

vim_executable mvim

This option will sometimes call redraw, which can make the minibuffer blink on occasion.

The biggest disadvantage of this method is that Vim will cancel leader key maps. If this is an issue, you can call :FlooPause and :FlooUnpause to pause/unpause the event loop. Alternatively, you can type really quickly.

2. CursorHold/CursorHoldI with feedkeys.

If your Vim wasn't launched as a server, or something goes wrong, Floobits falls back to making an event loop by repeatedly triggering autocommands. This will unfortuantely escape any key sequence, like ctrl-w j, unless you finish it within one tick of the event loop. You can call :FlooPause and :FlooUnpause to pause/unpause the event loop if you have to. Alternatively, you can type really quickly.

Installation

• Create a Floobits account or sign in with GitHub.
• Add your Floobits username and API secret to ~/.floorc.json. You can find your API secret on your settings page. A typical ~/.floorc.json looks like this:

{
  "auth": {
    "floobits.com": {
      "username": "your_username",
      "api_key": "your_api_key",
      "secret": "your_api_secret_not_your_password"
    }
  }
}

• Vundle users: Add Bundle 'Floobits/floobits-vim' to your ~/.vimrc.
• Pathogen users: cd ~/.vim/bundle and git clone https://github.com/Floobits/floobits-vim Floobits

Usage

• :FlooShareDirPublic /path/to/files. Share a directory with others. This will create a new workspace, populate it with the files in that directory, and open the workspace's settings in your browser.
• :FlooShareDirPrivate /path/to/files. Share a directory with others. This will create a new workspace, populate it with the files in that directory, and open the workspace's settings in your browser.
• :FlooJoinWorkspace https://floobits.com/owner/workspace_name. Join a Floobits workspace. Workspace URLs are the same as what you see in the web editor.
• :FlooPartWorkspace. Leave the workspace.
• :FlooToggleFollowMode. Toggle follow mode. Follow mode will follow the most recent changes to buffers.
• :FlooSummon. Make everyone in the workspace jump to your cursor.
• :FlooPause. Pause the event loop so you can type keyboard shortcuts.
• :FlooUnPause. Resume the event loop so you can collaborate again.
• :FlooDeleteBuf. Delete the current buffer from the workspace.

Troubleshooting

Other plugins can interfere with Floobits. For example, YouCompleteMe changes updatetime to 2000 milliseconds. This causes increased latency and decreased reliability when collaborating. add let g:ycm_allow_changing_updatetime = 0 to your ~/.vimrc.

If you experience problems, try disabling other plugins before submitting a bug report. You can also get ahold of us using IRC, Twitter, or e-mail.