Jimbo is a collaborative code editor designed to provide immediate feedback and connection between code and its output, addressing inefficiencies in traditional coding practices. Key features include live preview, collaboration tools, communication options, and user awareness capabilities. The effectiveness of Jimbo's features needs to be evaluated through user testing to determine their impact on software development models.

1. Jimbo: A Collaborative Code Editor with Live Preview
Soroush Ghorashi, Carlos Jensen
Human-Computer Interaction Group, School of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, Oregon State University
Jimbo Environment
Abstract
Traditional way of coding requires developers to take following steps in creating any kind of software artifact: write some code into a text editor
and then compile and run it. However before running the code and seeing the output, developers only have an imagination in their heads of what
are these lines of code are going to create. Moreover, after any changes they make to the code, they have to repeat these steps to see the new
results. But they need to see the effects of these modifications and decisions they are making during the coding process immediately. Thus they
need an immediate connection to whatever they are creating. This paper reports on Jimbo, a collaborative development environment that provides
this immediate connection as well as collaboration on the code and user awareness.
Problem
 Lack of immediate connection between
developers and the software
 Lack of collaboration in software development
 Communication problems in collaborative
environments for software development
 Lack of necessary awareness in such
environments
Features
 Collaboration
 Code editing
 Easy share
 Helper widgets (color, numerical)
 Communication
 Text-based chat
 Discussion threads
 Audio/Video chat
 Live preview
 User Awareness
 Code lock
 Code watch
 Push notifications
 Code change
 State change
Conclusion
Jimbo is a collaborative development environment that is built based on an important principle: immediate connection between the code
and its output. However this development tool needs to be evaluated by actual users to see how effective are its features in real practices
and will these feature streamline the current trends in software development models?
Jimbo Collaboration
Jimbo Communication
Technologies
 Backend-Server
 Node.js, Express.js
 Jade templating
 Stylus css meta-language
 Collaboration
 Wave protocol
 Operational transformation
 Frontend
 HTML 5, CSS 3, JavaScript
 Communications
 WebRTC (real-time communication)
 Browserchannel protocol
 Visualizations
 D3 library
Soroush Ghorashi
Research Assistant
HCI Group, School of EECS
Oregon State University
ghorashi@eecs.orst.edu
Carlos Jensen
Associate Professor
HCI Group, School of EECS
Oregon State University
cjensen@eecs.oregonstate.edu