Beyond Blocks: Lilypad, a Text-Based Visual Code Editor

Research on dual-modality and frame-based editors has uncovered strengths and weaknesses to block-oriented approaches to programming and instruction. Building on lessons learned from these editing models, we developed Lilypad, a text-based visual code editor. Lilypad is a modern text-based code editor that generates visual frames around code structures in real-time. Lilypad is designed to simplify the addition of new languages and can operate as a native-code standalone application, plugin, or web-based editor. In this demonstration, we showcase Lilypad's features, design, and real-time use.