Typing code is fun. You know what’s even better? Typing your code in the cloud. Cloud9 IDE will autocomplete practically everything for you, like keywords or methods. Beyond that, though, it’ll also autocomplete English words based on text in your comments or README. You can even autocomplete “language-aware” items, like “fun” for function, “sp” for span–yes, that means HTML tags, too.

If your code is looking a little messy, organize it with JSBeautify and CSSLint, which are integrated right into the IDE. Autoindenting and outdenting your code is a snap; if you’re getting really lost, the IDE can point out matching parenthesis, brackets, and quotation characters, as well as highlighting the same word throughout an entire file.

Plus, you’ll never have to worry about mistyping ever again. Cloud9 IDE displays warnings and error notifications for your code, including variables that are not being used at all within a particular scope. If that’s not enough, we’ve built our own tool to statically analyze for future optimizations. Pretty awesome, no?

We’ve also got zen mode, which is a distraction free, full-screen coding environment. And if you really are working with gigantic documents, there’s the minimap, a sidebar visualization of your entire file.

File management in Cloud9 IDE is a piece of cake! Besides support for folders and dragging around files, the IDE also boasts tabbed file management (with the ability to rearrange tabs) and a list view of your active files.

Plus, with tab sessions, you can save the state of your open files and reuse them later. This is tremendously useful if you find yourself working between multiple projects (or keep switching between Git branches) and need to constantly close and resume work on multiple files.

Although Cloud9 IDE is primarily intended as an environment for HTML5, Javascript, and Node.js applications, it also supports a wide variety of programming languages, with full syntax highlighting. The editor comes with over two dozen different color themes, with full import support for existing Textmate themes.

Here’s a list of all the languages that Cloud9 IDE speaks:

Nearly every action in the Cloud9 IDE has an associated keybindings, from running projects to accessing preferences, and even shifting between tabs. These bindings exist for all the major operating systems—Windows, Mac OS X, and Linux—regardless of your browser.

Beyond that, you can also happily code away using VIM and Emacs keybindings throughout your code. Toggling these options is as easy as changing a preference!

The IDE contains an unobtrusive (and very powerful) command line at the bottom of every project. It’s not just for show—it can actually run some standard Unix commands (like mkdir and ls).

Pointing and clicking is for the birds. You can also perform various IDE tasks, like tab management, searching for files, and running your code, directly through text commands.

You can also run git and mercurial commands to transfer your projects back and forth between your repositories. Finally, you can use the Node Package Manager to install any packages your project depends on.

We get it: your projects are probably stored in some repository somewhere, managed and updated with traditional offline tools.

Let’s give them a new home right in Cloud9! It’s easy to import your projects from any of the following code repositories:

• GitHub
• Bitbucket
• Mercurial Repositories
• Git Repositories
• FTP servers

When you’re finished working, you can easily push your changes back into the repo—or deploy your projects to the following production environments:

• Joyent
• Heroku
• Azure

By default, all your projects on Cloud9 IDE are public and open sourced, and accessable to anyone to view or fork.

Imported private projects remain private until you clone them—even on a free account! If you need them to remain private, you can upgrade to Cloud9 Premium for a low monthly fee.

Since the Cloud9 IDE is open-sourced on GitHub, anyone can fork the code, make changes, and submit a pull request to make a contribution that everyone can enjoy.

If changing the internals of the editor is not really your thing, you’re in luck! There’s also support for creating your own plugins–we call them extensions. These can be anything from adding new menu options, to changing the color scheme of the IDE.