f1b4206cad
We had a problem with the server running out of stack space if a client submitted a changeset based on a revision more than about 1000 revs old. (944 was our cutoff but yours may vary). This happened in the wild with about 30 people editing via flaky wifi. A disconnected client would try to submit a fairly old changeset when reconnecting, and a few minutes was enough for 30 people to generate that many revs. The stack kept growing because pad.getRevisionChangeset was being answered from the cache, so no I/O interrupted the callback chain. (This was seen with mysql, I don't know about other backends.) This patch forces a nextTick every 200 revisions to solve this problem. |
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|---|---|---|
| available_plugins/ep_fintest | ||
| bin | ||
| doc | ||
| src | ||
| tools/doc | ||
| var | ||
| .gitignore | ||
| CHANGELOG.md | ||
| CONTRIBUTING.md | ||
| LICENSE | ||
| Makefile | ||
| README.md | ||
| README.plugins | ||
| settings.json.template | ||
| start.bat | ||
README.md
Making collaborative editing the standard on the web
About
Etherpad lite is a really-real time collaborative editor spawned from the Hell fire of Etherpad. We're reusing the well tested Etherpad easysync library to make it really realtime. Etherpad Lite is based on node.js ergo is much lighter and more stable than the original Etherpad. Our hope is that this will encourage more users to use and install a realtime collaborative editor. A smaller, manageable and well documented codebase makes it easier for developers to improve the code and contribute towards the project.
Etherpad vs Etherpad lite
| Etherpad | Etherpad Lite | |
| Size of the folder (without git history) | 30 MB | 1.5 MB |
| Languages used server side | Javascript (Rhino), Java, Scala | Javascript (node.js) |
| Lines of server side Javascript code | ~101k | ~9k |
| RAM Usage immediately after start | 257 MB (grows to ~1GB) | 16 MB (grows to ~30MB) |
Etherpad Lite is designed to be easily embeddable and provides a HTTP API that allows your web application to manage pads, users and groups. It is recommended to use the client implementations available for this API, listed on this wiki page. There is also a jQuery plugin that helps you to embed Pads into your website
Visit beta.etherpad.org to test it live
Also, check out the FAQ, really!
Installation
Windows
Prebuilt windows package
This package works out of the box on any windows machine, but it's not very useful for developing purposes...
- Download the windows package https://github.com/Pita/etherpad-lite/downloads
- Extract the folder
Now, run start.bat and open http://localhost:9001 in your browser. You like it? Next steps.
Fancy install
You'll need node.js and (optionally, though recommended) git.
- Grab the source, either
- download https://github.com/Pita/etherpad-lite/zipball/master
- or
git clone https://github.com/Pita/etherpad-lite.git(for this you need git, obviously)
- start
bin\installOnWindows.bat
Now, run start.bat and open http://localhost:9001 in your browser.
Update to the latest version with git pull origin, then run bin\installOnWindows.bat, again.
Linux
You'll need gzip, git, curl, libssl develop libraries, python and gcc.
For Debian/Ubuntu: apt-get install gzip git-core curl python libssl-dev pkg-config build-essential
For Fedora/CentOS: yum install gzip git-core curl python openssl-devel && yum groupinstall "Development Tools"
Additionally, you'll need node.js.
As any user (we recommend creating a separate user called etherpad-lite):
- Move to a folder where you want to install Etherpad Lite. Clone the git repository
git clone git://github.com/Pita/etherpad-lite.git - Change into the new directory containing the cloned source code
cd etherpad-lite
Now, run bin\run.sh and open http://127.0.0.1:9001 in your browser.
Update to the latest version with git pull origin. The next start with bin/run.sh will update the dependencies.
You like it? Next steps.
Next Steps
Tweak the settings
You can modify the settings in settings.json. (If you need to handle multiple settings files, you can pass the path to a settings file to bin/run.sh using the -s|--settings option. This allows you to run multiple Etherpad Lite instances from the same installation.)
You should use a dedicated database such as "mysql", if you are planning on using etherpad-lite in a production environment, since the "dirtyDB" database driver is only for testing and/or development purposes.
Helpful resources
The wiki is your one-stop resource for Tutorials and How-to's, really check it out! Also, feel free to improve these wiki pages.
Documentation can be found in docs/.
Development
Things you should know
Read this git guide and watch this video on getting started with Etherpad Lite Development.
If you're new to node.js, start with Ryan Dahl's Introduction to Node.js.
You can debug Etherpad lite using bin/debugRun.sh.
If you want to find out how Etherpad's Easysync works (the library that makes it really realtime), start with this PDF (complex, but worth reading).
Getting started
You know all this and just want to know how you can help?
Look at the TODO list and our Issue tracker. (Please consider using jshint, if you plan to contribute code.)
Also, and most importantly, read our Developer Guidelines, really!
Get in touch
Join the mailinglist and make some noise on our freenode irc channel #etherpad-lite-dev!
Modules created for this project
- ueberDB "transforms every database into a object key value store" - manages all database access
- channels "Event channels in node.js" - ensures that ueberDB operations are atomic and in series for each key
- async-stacktrace "Improves node.js stacktraces and makes it easier to handle errors"
Donate!
- [Flattr] (http://flattr.com/thing/71378/Etherpad-Foundation)
- Paypal - Press the donate button on etherpad.org