I have come to the conclusion that there is plenty of selection for online application development using a web-based development environment. After trying out several online IDE's over the last few months I was asked by a reader to check out ShiftEdit. I had read that this was an editor of choice for many on some of the Chrome OS forums where the question of what is used to develop on the Cr-48 usually shows up. So I decided I would try out another IDE to get a feel for how it compares to others I have tried.
First off, bonus points for allowing Google (or Facebook) login. After authentication, this feels like a desktop IDE similar to what I feel like in CodeRun, Cloud9, or Akshell (I usually test this by going full screen on my Cr-48 and say its good if it isn't obvious I am in a web browser). Selection of file formats is diverse and allows for PHP, HTML, JavaScript, CSS, Perl, Python, Ruby, Java, or Text with built-in FTP support, which is nice for those who enjoy diverse development. I tried to create a trivial web page and was pleased with the HTML editor with the exception of when I tried the split view (HTML and Design viewed at the same time) I found it hard to keep the focus on the HTML screen and ended up navigating away from the editor when hitting backspace to delete a <div>. This is not a huge deal as I would likely not develop full time in split view.
JavaScript editing is almost too full featured for my taste by default. There is an auto complete feature that will auto close brackets in your code as you type. I found that I was creating double closing brackets so I turned that feature off which was easy enough in the Edit -> Preferences menu. However, JSLint is a wonderful addition to any JavaScript Editor, and is fully configurable in the Preferences section (so if you don't like to be forced to use === instead of == you can allow that).
A feature that I've recently learned is important to me in an online IDE is allowing for multiple tabs to be opened at once. ShiftEdit does this well. (I have been working a lot in Akshell for some recent development and the lack of tab support is nearly a deal breaker...along with the times when I log in and all the open files disappear and I have to select the current project again to restore the view). There are many other features that I have yet to try in ShiftEdit which could be handy, though I'm not sure I'll try them out anytime soon. Perhaps I will never need to utilize them.
I have found I'm no longer sure what I'll be using as my web-based development environment (most likely a combination of many, just as I develop in a desktop environment). I am fairly certain I have seen enough for now (of course if you have found "the best" one, let me know, I'll check it out) that I will be able to find the one (or two, or three) that suits my needs best. Recently I've been trying all these IDE's out and sticking with the current flavor of the week only to later find out certain limitations or something that I preferred in a different editor. This is no different than using a full featured text editor outside of Visual Studio for example to edit JavaScript or XML files because I don't particularly care for the way these appear in Visual Studio. What I really need or want in a cloud-based IDE is still being defined as each one's limitations or offerings reveal themselves through repeated use.
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