Actionscript3 development with FDT
So far I've been using Flash Develop for all my AS3 projects. But recently, as I stared to do some more serious development, I thought it's time to look for a more powerful tool. Thanks to Marcel from Slot3 and the guys from Powerflasher, since a couple of weeks I am equipped with a new, shiny FDT3 Enterprise license.
I assume that most of the readers of this blog know what FDT is. However, recently I have been asking quite a lot of developers about it, and to my surprise, only some have heard of it, very few are actually using it. So I thought, I'd post some info for those of you who are not familiar with FDT yet.
FDT is an Eclipse based AS2/AS3 editor. It has a rich set of features that helps writing and editing code, and a build tool to compile Flex/Flash projects. It is equipped with numerous cool features, such as code completion, refactoring functions, syntax checker and more. To give you just a glimpse of how FDT can help you in everyday Flash/Flex development, I'll focus on two of my favorite ones.
Templates. In short templates are shortcuts to generate a chunk of code - everything starting with a method call, ending with a class stub. Example: typing lots of log messages can be tedious. In FDT you just create a template, and every time you type in a shortcut (ex. log) it will automatically generate call to your log class (whatever you might use) that can look like this:
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Log.info("ClassName.methodName: ");
Of course ObjectName will automatically be set to whatever class you are in, and so will methodName. FDT has a built in template editor, so you can create any template you want. Believe me, once you get used to this, it will speed up your coding a lot.
ANT integration. ANT is a Java based universal build tool. If you wonder what a build tool is, imagine you have a project that is composed of 30 SWF files. I am sure you can feel the pain that is publishing them all each time you change something. With ANT this kind of task is fully automated and makes managing multiple-file projects really seamless.
But ANT is not just about compiling. It has a large number of plug-ins for almost anything. You can create a build file that will compile all the SWFs in you project, open an FTP connection, transfer all the project files to a web server and send an email with a link to your client for review. Nice, huh? It won't prepare your morning coffee though.
And there is more of course. I suggest you download the trial version and check for yourself.
Unlike Flash Develop, FDT is not free. The license can constitute quite an important expense in fact. However, if you consider making some advanced AS3 development it is definitely worth trying out.
September 19th, 2008 at 5:55 pm
The best features of FDT are the really simple things, like being able to search where you use a certain class/method/vaiable, or showing a quick type hierarchie (which also lets you see where you define/reimplement te highlighted class member), quickly jump to a file and lots more of all kinds of small toollets.
September 19th, 2008 at 6:17 pm
why would someone sane spend 599 euros (!!!) when you can buy flex builder (and use ANT with that as well) for just 216.59 euros - it is a clear rip-off from the fdt people..
even better - how even t save those 216 euros?? just download eclipse and the flex sdk for free, spending those hours understanding how to do it yourself won’t get to that price.
anyhow they are all thieves cause even flex and fdt is a custom build of eclipse - so it basically looks the same and behaves almost the same.
did you really bought it or got it for free so you would write this post (”..Thanks to Marcel from Slot3 and the guys from Powerflasher, since a couple of weeks I am equipped with a new, shiny FDT3 Enterprise license…”)??
September 19th, 2008 at 6:38 pm
Have to agree with “A.” the price point on FTD just isn’t worth it in my opinion. I actually downloaded the trial (I use FB3 currently) and disabled it because it mucked up the interface so badly. The Templates feature is one that is seriously missed in FB though but that feature alone isn’t worth $934.18, I’d rather save that and buy Adobe Master Suite.
I use FB3 for developing with Flash IDE, I used FlashDevelop prior and the only things I missed there were the ability to CMD+ENTER to compile and the //TODO List. Great thing about Eclipse is you can write in your won features or find people that have already done it for you. So I wrote the CMD+ENTER plug and downloaded a Task List Plug-in that works in FB.
Maybe I’ll give it another whirl because I’m interested to see what all of the hype is about and why it can command such a heavy tag. I wouldn’t recommend anybody installing it into Flex Builder however, so I’ll give it a whirl in Eclipse. Though I think it would have to make my coffee to drop that many nickels on it though.
What I’d like to see is a side-by-side comparison between FB3 and FTD …
September 19th, 2008 at 7:52 pm
FlashDevelop has the best code-completion in the industry. Nobody comes close and Eclipse is incapable of matching that level of completion. That’s not FDT’s fault, it’s a limitation of Eclipse.
You can use Ctrl+Enter to compile in FlashDevelop. You can also use F5 or F8. You can set up Flash to be the compiler, too. You can even run it in Parallels on OSX and have it use the OSX Flash IDE to compile.
FlashDevelop has TODO support. They appear in the Tasks panel. BUG shows up, too.
FlashDevelop has class lookup (F4) and you don’t have to highlight it, your caret just needs to be within the name of it.
FlashDevelop has syntax checking on save just like FlexBuilder.
FlashDevelop has customizable templates and snippets.
FlashDevelop has fantastic, customizable code generation.
FlashDevelop also doesn’t require you open a project to edit Actionscript files. You can open any AS file at any time in any way. Eclipse (therefore FDT and FB) require you to open a project first and then open at least ONE Actionscript file manually for you to be able to drag and drop an Actionscript file onto the application to open it.
FlashDevelop also doesn’t require that an Actionscript file you opened be part of the current project to get auto-completion, code-hints and syntax checking (for native Actionscript classes).
FlashDevelop is certainly well suited to Advanced AS3 Development. Give the money to the FlashDevelop guys. Their app is free, open-source and the best editor out there.
I don’t think FDT is worth the price tag. The lexical parsing is really nice, in fact, that is one feature that might make the lowest price version worthwhile, if only for finding bugs and other issues in your code the Flex compiler doesn’t.
September 20th, 2008 at 7:13 pm
I’ve tried a lot of options. I’ve concluded that the best development envirmoent is Textmate.
Not happy with the code completion…just rewrite it. Not happy with templates? Make new one or edit old ones. Want to use a different compiler, just write a short termainal script and tie it to a keyboard shortcut.
Have a project that uses XML, AS, PHP, etc…. No prob, every language has equal support.
you definalty cant say that about FDT and Eclipse
And it’s 58 bucks
September 22nd, 2008 at 11:37 pm
I love FlashDevelop! And I agree with Steven Sacks… give your money to the guys behind FlashDevelop instead of buying FDT. :-)
September 24th, 2008 at 12:23 pm
I see I touched a sensible topic here :)
Apparently the choice of the tool has a lot to do with personal preferences, and any discussion about which tool is better will end up being fruitless. Everyone will go away convinced that that he is right, and others wrong.
I happen to like FDT - because of its rich set of features, but also because it is based on Eclipse, that I feel very comfortable with. That is my personal preference.
I worked with FlashDevelop and I greatly appreciate the effort of the team to build this editor and distribute it for free. I would recommend FD to anyone today, especially to people that want to start developing AS3. However it misses some features that are crucial for me - a reasonable support for projects with multiple SWFs being one of them.
I worked with FlexBuilder only once, and never even saw TextMate (I am a PC :), so I can’t really say much about those two. But thanks to everyone for your comments!
November 3rd, 2008 at 12:23 pm
No doubt that FlashDevelop is the best Flash IDE ever. It is much more faster and it is not based on Eclipse - that is a huge plus for me and other guys who want editor to be light. Editor features like ‘Ctrl+Shift+1′ (code generation) are awesome. If you want to by some editor then please don’t - just download the latest version of FlashDevelop and donate money to Mika and Philippe.
November 3rd, 2008 at 7:57 pm
I’d seen FDT before, and figured one day I’d try it. That day is much further away after one of the FDT sales people decided to make an account on Flash Develop’s forums and then spam everyone about their product.
It’s a shame when a potentially good product is tarnished by someone’s lack of ethics.
December 14th, 2008 at 9:47 pm
If you’ve used Flex Builder or FDT/Eclipse, you already know that FlashDevelop is the best editor available.