Overview
Visual Studio Live Share is a VSCode extension that enables real-time collaborative development.
https://visualstudio.microsoft.com/ja/services/live-share/
This time, we will try real-time collaborative editing of TEI/XML files using this extension.
Demo Video
A video of the collaborative editing was recorded.
The right side of the screen shows a user (nakamura196) using VSCode in a local environment, while the left side shows a user (Guest User) invited via Visual Studio Live Share editing using the online VSCode (vscode.dev).
Line 1 is edited by the local user (nakamura196), and line 1 is edited by the online collaborator (Guest User). The TEI/XML preview screen introduced in the following article is also synchronized.
https://zenn.dev/nakamura196/articles/d2733cc49d1239
Usage
For instructions on using Visual Studio Live Share, please refer to the following page. It is very easy to create a collaborative editing environment. You can also set permissions per user, such as “view only” or “can edit,” enabling various use cases.
https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/visualstudio/liveshare/quickstart/share
Here is a brief introduction to the usage.
Inviting Side
Install Visual Studio Live Share, then select the “Live Share” tab on the left side of the screen and press the “Share” button as shown below.
Press “Invite participants” to copy a link like the following.
https://prod.liveshare.vsengsaas.visualstudio.com/join?7D0781A4301C45E7669D4D32CCE870AEBE2B
Invited Side
Access the above URL. A popup about user settings will appear at the bottom right as shown below. You can join as an anonymous user or log in if you already have an account.
After that, the status changes to waiting for the host’s approval.
Once the host sets the permissions, the invited user can view or collaboratively edit.
In the above demo, the online user also displays the preview screen by installing the “TEI Japanese Editor” extension.
Observations
I wrote the following comment in another article.
By using the web version of VSCode, such as https://github.dev/, it becomes unnecessary for each user to set up their environment, making it easier to prepare editing environments. However, as of January 2023, extensions such as Scholarly XML are not supported in the web version, making it difficult to use such an environment at this time.
However, by using the method described in this article, Scholarly XML validation can be performed on the local environment user’s side, while the invited user can easily set up using the online VSCode, which may serve as one solution to the above challenge. (Of course, it would be resolved if Scholarly XML supported the web version.)
Summary
This time we focused on TEI/XML, but this is not limited to TEI/XML.
Visual Studio Live Share is a very useful extension. It can also be a valuable environment for TEI learning.
I hope this serves as a helpful reference for collaborative editing of TEI/XML and other files.