Web development can be a sole or group task. For the former, it’s pretty simple to organise your workflow, having everything within your own hardware and your own software. However, if you’re working as part of a development group, it’s a little more difficult to organise and collaborate.
Introducing Squad, a collaborative code editor inside your browser. By opening a local file or connecting to a server with S/FTP, you can edit code in the Squad web app alongisde others and even chat with them in a dedicated discussion area.
Getting Started
Connecting via FTP in Squad.
As I mentioned before, you can connect to files both local or remote files for editing. Local files can be uploaded from your computer through an applet and then edited within Squad, much like any other file.
Alternatively, what is perhaps the main way you’ll be opening files in Squad is over S/FTP (that’s both Secure and regular FTP). To add a new connection, simply click the “add” link atop the file browser and then enter FTP details like your domain, username, password etc. Unfortunately, it took me a while to actually get my FTP details accepted by the service and had to try multiple configurations before it would work.
When entering your domain, enter your site’s regular URL and not a specific FTP address. You should also write your username in the format of [email protected] and not just username.
Once you’re up and running with your FTP connection, the file browser down the left side will list all your files and folders. This is in a convenient directory tree format, so you can easily expand and collapse folders.
The Editor
The editor in Squad takes full prominence in the centre pane. Lines are numbered, allowing you to easily identify areas of your document. There’s also apparently syntax highlighting, a fundamental of any good code editor, although for some reason my files did not evidence that.
It might be nominal, but I have to note how much I like the typography in the code editor. It’s still a fixed-width font, as you’d expect, but it looks a lot better than the kind you see in most text editors. However, the editor lacks line wrapping meaning you’ll have to constantly scroll left and right which is very annoying. This feature is highly critical to a good editor in my eyes and needs to be implemented in a future release if it’s to stay a viable contender.
A page open in the Squad editor.
At the bottom of the editor are the tabs, which allows you to open multiple files and switch between them quickly.
Chat and Collaboration
The key selling point of Squad is the collaboration features, since that’s probably why you’re opting to use it over a native app or something else exclusive to your editing.
Squad can host multiple “workspaces”, with each being dedicated to a different use. You can share individual workspaces by either email or a URL, allowing you to easily target specific spaces to specific departments of your team. It also means you could create different workspaces with different paths on your domain, allowing you to restrict access to specific people while allowing others to access more areas in another workspace. It would, however, be nice to have a little more control over team management so that we could restrict access or other abilities to certain people.
The chat and action tracking panel in Squad.
Of course, it’d be annoying to have this great collaboration platform yet have to use another service or app to communicate. Don’t worry, though, since Squad includes a chat feature allowing you to communicate in the far-right panel of the app. Not only that, but the chat tracks all actions within the Squad app so you can see what actions have been taken by the team. This includes saving and opening files, which contributes to a neat little detail.
Pricing & Final Thoughts
There’s two roads to take when subscribing to Squad. The Solo Plan offers you most features sans team chat history for $3.95/month for one user whereas the Team plan offers you everything for a total of 5 users for $49.95/month. If you opt for the Team plan and wish to include more users, Squad will cost another $8/month per user. You’ll get a 10-day free trial with either plan, without the need to enter card details too!
Squad is a nice code editor and a great platform for collaboration. There’s a few little problems i’ve experienced, such as the S/FTP connection issues, but it’s overall been a smooth, responsive experience that i’m sure you’ll like. There’s a definite place for a future release roadmap, but it does what it’s supposed to and the side-by-side chat functionality is an added bonus. The activity feed and chat areas are, however, vital and, without them, I probably wouldn’t consider using this app.
Nevertheless, I’m sure you’ll appreciate the functionality of Squad and, if you’re willing to pay, will allow it to be a valued part of your team’s workflow.