Etherpad lite allows you to edit documents collaboratively in real-time, much like a live multi-player online editor: People instantly see what others are typing and can discuss the changes using the built in chat. And since things can get chaotic and confusing very quickly with more than two contributors, EtherPad lite makes things clear by highlighting each author's contributions with a unique color. Additionally, Etherpad lite provides access to all data through a well-documented HTTP API and supports import/export to many major data exchange formats. The built-in plugin system makes extending the core functionality almost a breeze.
Try the demo.
Etherpad lite was spawned from the hell fire of Etherpad and is based entirely on node.js, while reusing the well-tested easysync library. This makes it much more lightweight 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 code base makes it easier for developers to understand and improve the code and contribute towards the project.
The wiki provides useful tuorials and How-to's to get you started with Etherpad lite.
A more thorough reference can be found in the official documentation.
Etherpad is an open source project. And that means, that everything, from this website to the core of the application itself, has been contributed by passionate, helpful individuals (such as yourself) who liked what they saw and wanted to make something better of it. So if you like what you see, and want to make something better of it, we'd like to see your contributions. It doesn't matter how familiar you are with real-time applications, or whether you know how to write programs for Node.js. There are plenty of ways to be helpful! Just ask!
One of the first things you should do is actually use Etherpad lite, and get to know it, read about it, evangelise it, and engage with the wider community. You can also learn, how to write plugins and implement some cool stuff. Be creative!
If you are willing to help, get in touch!
The main development happens on Github. To contribute, fork the main repo, branch off a feature branch from develop, make your changes and commit them, push to your fork and submit a pull request for Pita/develop.
Once in a while we merge develop into master, which results in a new release. This means you will always find the latest stable version in the master branch.