Coderpair vscode-live

Run VS Code on any machine anywhere and access it in the browser.

Set up multiple user accounts. Each user may have their own preferences/settings.

Collaborate with your team in real time.

*Use the group icon in the statusbar to open the user list.

Getting Started

This is an extension of code-server's release of vscode.

Almost all the info that you need can be found on the code-server page. The only thing that will be covered here are the differences.

Installing

Get the latest release here. Go to the code-server installation page. Refer to the instructions for manual installation for your particular environment.

Setup

Run code-server according to the instructions in the installation page above and visit the code-server page in your browser. If everything looks OK, you are ready to start setting up vscode-live.

When code-server starts up, it creates a default config file in ~/.config/code-server/config.yaml that looks like this:

bind-addr: 127.0.0.1:8080
auth: password
password: mewkmdasosafuio3422 # This is randomly generated for each config.yaml
admin: osdifnasdfiopsdfn3556 # This is randomly generated for each config.yaml
cert: false

The password field is what you use to log in to code-server as the default user.

admin is a secondary password that you use for making changed through the dashboard.

Setting up Firebase

You will need a Firebase account to use the real time collaboration feature. You can sign up here for a free account.

After signing up, edit the config.yaml so that it looks like this:

bind-addr: 127.0.0.1:8080
auth: password
password: mewkmdasosafuio3422 # This is randomly generated for each config.yaml
admin: osdifnasdfiopsdfn3556 # This is randomly generated for each config.yaml
cert: false
firebase-apiKey: '<API_KEY>'
firebase-authDomain: '<DATABASE_NAME>.firebaseapp.com'
firebase-databaseURL: 'https://<DATABASE_NAME>.firebaseio.com'
firebase-ref: '-MCyz2LOkxQUSJBASlcG'

Fill in the <API_KEY> and <DATABASE_NAME> with your Firebase settings. You can leave the firebase-ref field as is or change it if you feel like it! Restart code-server for the changes to go into effect.

Skip to Turn on real time collaboration if you don't want to set up multiple accounts.

Setting up multiple accounts

You can set up an account for each of your team members. Each user will be able to use vscode-live with their own default settings.

In order to set up multiple accounts, add a users field to the config.yaml file so that it looks like this:

bind-addr: 127.0.0.1:8080
auth: password
password: mewkmdasosafuio3422 # This is randomly generated for each config.yaml
admin: osdifnasdfiopsdfn3556 # This is randomly generated for each config.yaml
cert: false
firebase-apiKey: '<API_KEY>'
firebase-authDomain: '<DATABASE_NAME>.firebaseapp.com'
firebase-databaseURL: 'https://<DATABASE_NAME>.firebaseio.com'
firebase-ref: '-MCyz2LOkxQUSJBASlcG'
users: {
  robert: {password: pswd1, role: admin},
  sara: {password: pswd2, role: user}
  leonardo: {password: pswd3, role: user}
}

Restart code-server for the changes to go into effect.

You can add as many accounts as you like. You will log in to code server with password you specify, so make sure it is a secure password.

Go to the login page in your browser

ie http://localhost:8080/login

and sign in with one of the user accounts.

Turning on real time collaboration

Head over to the dashboard:

ie http://localhost:8080/dashboard

go to the real time collaboration section, and turn it on there. Make sure you use the admin password in the config file to make changes.

Have fun!