Recently, I’ve been checking out codekeep.net which allows developers to keep code snippets on the web either in a private folder or to be shared with others across the following programming languages: ActionScript, ASP, ASP.NET, Codesmith, C++, C#, CSS, Delphi, HTML, Java, JavaScript, Perl, PHP, Python, Ruby, SQL, VB6, VBA, VB.NET, VBScript, XML and XSL.

If those languages don’t cover you, then an “other” category is also available.

Codekeep.net makes a Visual Studio add-in available for both Visual Studio 2003 .NET and Visual Studio 2005 so you can save your snippets while working.

Once the add-in is installed, click on TOOLS->CodeKeep and then choose one of the options: settings, my snippets, browse snippets, search snippets and add to codekeep.

What do these options do?

Settings - change your password, optionally connect through a proxy server
My Snippets - display all your saved code snippets
Browse Snippets - look at snippets by author email address or language
Search Snippets - search code snippet text or title and description field
Add to CodeKeep - popup a form to add new code snippet. You can make the snippet private for your own use or share with the public.

Visual Studio has a built-in code snippet manager, but the disadvantage of using that is it being restricted to the machine you are working on. What if you want to pull one of those snippets out from a remote location? This is where Codekeep comes in handy. A good idea and a helpful tool for developers.

Codekeep.net also offers a way to share code snippets with a badge on your website/blog, plus it doubles as promotion for them which currently boasts a little over 8,300 registered users as of this writing. 6,640+ snippets have been created and 2,359 have been made public.

C# leads the list of most snippets, followed by VB.NET. Hardly any PHP snippets (24) are being shared. Perl (4) and Ruby (2) are even less represented.

Roach motel?
One thing I really do not like about Codekeep.net — and maybe I didn’t see this functionality so please correct me in the comments below if you know otherwise — but there is no export snippets function. I would like the ability to easily export any snippet I’ve created. Even better if a program would auto add to the built-in Visual Studio code snippet manager. This way when I conduct a new Visual Studio install on a machine I can pre-populate the built-in manager with my existing snippets.

Overall, a worthwhile tool to add to your developer arsenal, especially suited for developers who work at home and the office(s). Grade: B-

Did this post make you go hmm?

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