DEV Community: SuDa2103

GitLive 13.0: Codeshare now supports sharing via Live Share and Code With Me

SuDa2103 — Thu, 15 Jul 2021 12:18:19 +0000

Once on a call with a teammate, starting GitLive's codeshare will now offer you the choice of Live Share or Code With Me depending on which IDE you and your teammate are using.

Live Share for VS Code and Code With Me for JetBrains are great tools for pair programming and work in a very similar way to GitLive's built-in codeshare. The major difference is that the built-in codeshare is IDE agnostic and works even when one participant is using VS Code and the other JetBrains. It also quicker to start than Live Share or Code With Me as it reuses your current open IDE window.

But if both participants are using the same IDE and don't mind waiting for the project to load, Live Share and Code With Me offer a superior pair programming experience, with full support for the features of the IDE such as code completion and shared terminals. That's why we decided to integrate them into GitLive!

This feature requires all team members to update to the latest version. If you have not installed the GitLive plugin yet head to the VS Code or JetBrains marketplace to get started.

Selecting a project to share

While on a call, selecting Share Code will show the new codeshare dialog.

The dialog shows all the projects you currently have open, which you can choose to share via GitLive, Live Share, or Code With Me depending on the IDE the project is open in (and if you have the Live Share extension or Code With Me plugin installed). Under the GitLive tab you also have the option to share all open projects, where other participants can follow you from one project to another.

Sharing with Live Share or Code With Me

Once you have selected a project you will be prompted to switch back to your IDE.

If you are using Live Share and you haven't signed in yet, you will be prompted to sign in. If using Code With Me, you will be prompted to accept your teammate's request to join.

VS Code	JetBrains

Finally, once your teammate has accepted on their end you are good to go!

Sharing with GitLive

Sharing with the built-in codeshare and then realise you need the extra power of Live Share or Code With Me? No problem, you can switch from the built-in codeshare to Live Share or Code With Me at any time in the IDE.

VS CodeJetBrains

Joining a codeshare

When your teammate starts codesharing via LiveShare or CodeWithMe and you have a compatible IDE already open you will see a prompt to switch to that IDE window.

VS Code	JetBrains

Here you'll see any notifications regarding joining the codeshare.

VS Code	JetBrains

Then your teammate's project will open in a new IDE window and you are good to go!
If you didn't have a compatible IDE already open you will be prompted to open the sharing link in the browser instead.

VS Code	JetBrains

From here you can open a compatible IDE if you already have one installed or even join via the browser (Live Share) or using the thin desktop client (Code With Me)

VS Code	JetBrains

How to See Which Branch Your Teammates are on in VS Code

SuDa2103 — Thu, 01 Jul 2021 09:20:33 +0000

"What branch are you on?" is often the first question you ask when a teammate says "The tests aren't passing" or "The build failed". Here's how you can get an answer to that question without even needing to ask.
In VS Code, open up the team tab by clicking on the GitLive icon on the activity bar.

This will show a list of your teammates, if they are online (or away) and the issue they are currently working on. Locate the teammate you are interested in and click the arrow on the left-hand side of their avatar.

Now you will see all the repositories they have cloned including the name of their current branch!

NOTE: If an issue has been connected to the branch you'll see the issue name instead, if that's the case just hover your cursor over the issue name and a tooltip will appear showing you the branch name (and even the commit hash).

Don't have the GitLive extension installed yet? You can find it here and, if you need help setting it up, follow the instructions here .

How we use GitLive: A junior developer's perspective

SuDa2103 — Thu, 17 Jun 2021 12:15:02 +0000

I’m Sunny, and I’m a junior developer at GitLive. Since we are making a tool by developers, for developers, I wanted to share how I use our own product on a day to day basis.

Visibility

As an annoying and (relatively) useless junior developer, I have a lot of questions. Since we work in a fully remote team, picking my moments is both important and hard to do. GitLive helps me a lot with this. It shows me when people are online and what they’re working on. So ideally, I wait till someone’s online, working on the same repository I’m working on and on a similar issue… and then I ask away.


^{Both working on the firebase repository. Bingo!}	^{Look at that quick response time from Michael.}

It's worth mentioning that in the future, messaging will be available within the GitLive window, so the context switching between instant messaging apps and code IDEs will also be eliminated.

Cherry Picking

Sometimes I need uncommitted code from a teammate. With GitLive, I don’t even have to ask or disturb anyone. I just use our cherry picking feature to see the changes they’ve made and take whatever I need.

^{Thanks for this big chunk of code Fred!}

Pair Programming

GitLive’s most useful feature for me, personally, is the collaborate feature I’m trying to learn more about TypeScript. Pair programming with someone more experienced is a great way to do this. But pair programming remotely is a challenge… or at least it used to be. With GitLive, I can collaborate with one click, and no one has to begin a slack call and start screen sharing.

The convenience means that others don’t mind starting a quick collaboration session. It’s often easier than a long explanation, for both parties. In future releases, audio calls will be added to GitLive, so everything can be done within the IDE if necessary. Fred and Michael will soon be able to hear my lovely voice without even having to leave VS Code.

^{How pair programming feels for the less experienced person...}

Privacy

Have you ever been so embarrassed by the code you’re writing to solve a problem that you don’t want your colleagues to see? Me too. Luckily GitLive has a setting for this, so I can hide my working copy changes just in case.

Also, if you’re working on something important and don’t want to be disturbed, you can appear offline, or hide your activity graph from view. I’m usually the one bothering people, not the one being bothered, so this is not a problem I have myself, but a useful feature for some of you nonetheless (maybe for you Michael).

^{I don't have a good caption for this one. Please enjoy this screenshot!}

Conclusion

If you’re a tech lead reading this (ambitious I know – but one can dream) and you’re on the fence about whether to use GitLive, at least give it a try. From my experience, having a communication tool specific to developers makes the life of your team members (especially the juniors) much easier.