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Use Etherpad to write and collaborate on HTML, CSS, and JavaScript.

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Octocat-spinner-32 htmlpad
Octocat-spinner-32 htmlpad_dot_org
Octocat-spinner-32 .gitignore
Octocat-spinner-32 .gitmodules
Octocat-spinner-32 Procfile
Octocat-spinner-32 requirements.txt


By Atul Varma

This is a simple Web application that, for any URL path, serves the contents of an Etherpad with the same path with the MIME type text/html.

For example, if the application is served from and the Etherpad backend it's configured to use is at, then visiting will deliver the contents of as HTML.

This effectively allows people to easily collaborate on writing HTML, and it provides a very fast feedback loop between trying something out, seeing how it looks in the browser, and sharing it with others.


Quick Start

virtualenv venv

# On Windows, replace the following line with 'venv\Scripts\activate'.
source venv/bin/activate

pip install -r requirements.txt
python runserver

Then open your browser to http://localhost:8000. As you save changes to HTMLpad's source code, the server will automatically apply them, allowing you to iterate quickly.

Environment Variables

Unlike traditional Django settings, we use environment variables for configuration to be compliant with twelve-factor apps.

Note: When an environment variable is described as representing a boolean value, if the variable exists with any value (even the empty string), the boolean is true; otherwise, it's false.

Note: When running, DEBUG is enabled.

  • DEBUG is a boolean value that indicates whether debugging is enabled (this should always be false in production).
  • AUTO_COLLECTSTATIC is a boolean that determines whether to automatically run collectstatic when the WSGI app is instantiated. Useful for certain production deployments, such as Heroku.
  • HTMLPAD_ROOT is the string prefix, including any trailing slash but no leading slash, of the HTMLpad instance on the Web server. For example, if a user browses to to access your HTMLpad's root, then the setting's value is 'mypad/'. Defaults to an empty string.
  • ETHERPAD_PROTOCOL is the protocol of the Etherpad instance that your HTMLpad delegates to. Defaults to 'https'.
  • ETHERPAD_HOST is the Etherpad instance that your HTMLpad delegates to, formatted as a hostname:port string. Defaults to ''.

Security Considerations

Because the HTMLpad simply delivers universally-writeable Etherpad content as raw HTML, an HTMLpad instance should probably be served on its own dedicated domain.

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