Reference articles on history, science, culture and more
Encyclopedia

CodeMirror

JavaScript component that provides a code editor in the browser

Image credit is listed at the end of this article.

CodeMirror is a JavaScript component that provides a code editor in the browser. It has a rich programming API and a focus on extensibility.

01History

The first version of the editor was written early 2007, for the console in the Eloquent JavaScript website. The code was first packaged up and released under the name CodeMirror in May 2007. This version was based on the contentEditable feature of browsers.

In late 2010, the Ace project, another JavaScript-based code editor, pioneered new implementation techniques and demonstrated that it is possible, even in JavaScript, to handle documents with many thousands of lines without degraded performance. This prompted a rewrite of CodeMirror along the same principles. The result was version 2, which no longer relied on contentEditable and significantly improved performance.

Version 6 was released in 2022. The library has been split into a collection of packages, and core packages are released independently.

Watch videos about CodeMirrorExplainers and documentaries on YouTube (opens in a new tab)

Sources and credits

This article is adapted from the Wikipedia article CodeMirror, written by its contributors and licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0. Fathomly has changed the layout, removed citation markers, navigation and maintenance notices, and adjusted punctuation. This adapted version is shared under the same license. For references, see the original article.

Images, from Wikimedia Commons:

Fathomly is not affiliated with or endorsed by the Wikimedia Foundation. Spotted a problem? Tell us.