Since, the playground will be an extension to the fortran-lang.org, I feel this can be an opportunity to smooth the onboarding for new users. We should aim to give the user an insight on how the language can help them so they get a knack for it and explore it further.
Here’s a list of features I have planned to implement for this project, all of you are welcome to contribute to further to make the best tool:
- Robust editor with proper syntax highlighting - I’m planning to use Ace Editor
- Theme Functionality - option to configure the look of their code editor, selecting their desired theme, font sizes and other features based on their preference.
- Code Sharing - An option to share the code with other users to run the same snippet in the playground, for further collaboration.
- Interactive Tutorial - A tutorial to get Fortran newcomers up with the basics of the language and know-hows of creating a Fortran Program.
- Code saved in the browser, the last Fortran coded written will be available for users to continue development when they come back to the website
- File Saving and Opening - Option for users to load up their Fortran files to edit in the browser or save their current web instance on the machine to use it.
- Support for multiple Fortran Versions
- Support for multiple Fortran compilers(Currently I plan to incorporate gfortran,Lfortran and intel compilers)
- API for external users to directly paste the code onto our website editor
Thank you @milancurcic for ideas to ponder about, we should definitely discuss the big picture first and scope out the objectives for the playground.