You are here: Home » Bespin – An Extensible Web Code Editor

Bespin – An Extensible Web Code Editor

on February 18, 2009 in Featured, Tech for Life

Most people recognize Mozilla for its 2 most popular products – Firefox & Thunderbird.

But, Mozilla Labs has been churning out some really cool products and I like to try them out now and then. You can read my past Mozilla Labs product reviews here

Bespin – Web Code Editor

Bespin is an web-based code editor which is open and extensible. This is created with the aim of increasing developer productivity, better user experiences and promote the use of open standards.

Bespin aims to provide the following Bespin Logo

  • Ease of use – get coding quickly
  • Real-time collaboration – share live coding sessions
  • Integrated command line – command line like vi & emacs
  • Extensible and self-hosted – Ubiquity like commands or plugin via API
  • Wicked fast – responsive editing for even large files
  • Accessible from anywhere – work from anywhere, any device using a standards compliant web browser

Here is a quick video about Bespin:


Introducing Bespin from Dion Almaer on Vimeo.

Bespin Prototype 0.1 was released recently and it includes support for

  • Basic editing features
  • Syntax highlighting
  • Support for large file sizes
  • Undo/redo
  • Previewing files in the browser
  • Importing/exporting projects

Bespin Editor

You can quickly register for an account to give Bespin a try.

The thing with being extensible is that, anyone can just code up a plugin for Bespin and add more functionality to it just like how Firefox has become such a hit with all the top Firefox extensions.

In fact, there has already been a couple of contributions where one user implements Bespin Server API in a headless Eclipse and gets Java server messages in Bespin! And another user has integrated Bespin with the XWiki project.

As with other Mozilla Labs products, Bespin is still in its infancy and should be considered to be in prototype stage. I see this is as an early indicator of what the future holds for us in the web dominated world.

And it looks bright.

Google-powered Related Articles

    No related posts found

Explore Tags:

  • http://www.newhomessection.com/blog Rick@New Homes Section

    Interesting little tool… I think I’ll play around with it. Thanks for the suggestion!

    Rick@New Homes Sections last blog post..Foreclosure Prevention Plan | Help for Homeowners

  • http://tamasys.endoftheinternet.org Tamesis

    I think that while not too great at the moment, Bespin has a huge potential. It is lacking in code support, some basic usability features, and would benefit from a version system such as in Google Docs. Great start for it though – thanks for the post :)

  • http://www.designawardsgallery.com/ Best CSS Gallery

    Interesting post, Bespin sounds like a cool tool. I’ll give it a try

  • http://fxtradingsecrets.net/ Pete@fx trading

    The Bespin project may have a future. It has a lot of potential thanks to the possibility of adding extensions and, surely, thanks to being the Firefox project :)

  • http://www.hartgranite.co.uk Granite Worktops

    Bespin eh?

    Sounds like a tool to try out!

    Cheers, Andy ;)

  • http://www.caramembuatwebsitegratis.googlepages.com/lowongan-kerja lowongan kerja

    Sounds very cool, I’ll try that

  • http://www.bidetinternational.com Bidet

    This sounds like a great tool for editing, thanks for sharing it. Ill be sure to try it out

  • http://rush.edu Hilary@Chicago hospital

    Live coding sessions will really help out the newer coders such as myself!

    What a great concept.

  • http://thebloggersource.com The Blogger Source

    I have tried it and it’s not anything I would continue to use. Although I do see others benefiting from it.

    The Blogger Sources last blog post..15 Tips To Get More RSS Subscribers

  • http://www.nannies.bz/ Nanny

    nice post, i think that looks really cool, i love all the new stuff mozilla is putting out, it could really turn some heads in the near future. thanks

  • http://techmalaya.com Syahid A.

    Never heard of BeSpin before. Must try!

  • http://www.nashvillesmls.com/luxury.php Luxury Nashville homes

    It was an interesting experience to know more about the web-based code editor which is open and extensible. Support for large file sizes and Previewing files in the browser are some of the features which made me find more about Bespin.