Just wanted to exclaim to the world (well the handful of people that happen to read this post anyway 😉 that FlashDevelop is freaking unbelievable!
After using the Flash CS3 IDE to edit code, FlashDevelop is pure bliss! I did try it a few Beta versions back, but never for an AS2 project that was half way through. The speed with which I can code in FlashDevelop Vs. the Flash IDE is increased 3 fold. I know Vista and CS3 and my rather old hardware (yes I’ve got 2Gb of memory) are causing some of the issues I experience when editing .as files in Flash, but FlashDevelop isn’t affected by these same issues.
I just want to say thanks to Philippe for the work he’s put into this program.
Here’s hoping Adobe pull their finger out and put a usable text editor into the next version of Flash. Until then, FlashDevelop is my new best friend.
Yep, I too remember the day I discovered Flash Develop – enlightening.
Now just wait until you discover Eclipse and Flex Builder 🙂
“Now just wait until you discover Eclipse and Flex Builder :)”
Compairing flashdevelop (opensource app) with Adobe’s flexbuilder limps a bit. Doesn’t it?
For me flashdevelop is waaaaaayyyy better then flex builder for CS3 project. It’s smaller, faster and have much better code completion
FLASH DEVELOP IS AMAZING… Flex builder is really no good it always requires restart… and is just overall no where as fast as FD.
i just wish they had on osx too
“Compairing flashdevelop (opensource app) with Adobe’s flexbuilder limps a bit. Doesn’t it?”
I don’t get this comment.
Nowhere in his original post did he say he was looking for an opensource solution to developing Flash. In all actuality, he compared FlashDevelop to the Flash IDE (not opensource). The Flash IDE has never claimed to be a great coding environment which is why they have yet to really update it.
I would however say that Flex Builder is their solution to a great coding environment. Built on Eclipse (which you really can’t argue with regarding its presence in the programming world).
Now don’t get me wrong, I used FlashDevelop for quite a while and was a big proponent of it ( http://www.digitalflipbook.com/archives/2006/03/flashdevelop_2.php ) especially for AS2 projects and quick edits of .as files. But from the last I checked they have yet to provide a mac version (without Parallels).
When moving from editing .as files to serious large projects that require svn integration and external project referencing, unfortunately FlashDevelop doesn’t cut it.
Again though, I truly thank all the guys, especially Phillip, Mika and Nick, for creating such a great product and think it truly fills a gap in the Flash editing community, but to think that Flex Builder or Eclipse doesn’t stack up against FlashDevelop, as you might say, “limps a bit”.
@ Mark: I’ve fiddled around with the Flex Builder 3 Beta, and it’s definitely a step up from the Flash IDE, no doubting that. But I guess I didn’t get a good chance to dig around and see the functionality it might have over FlashDevelop. You mentioned large projects and svn integration – is this something Flex Builder handles natively?
As for the talk of limping (lol) it’s fair to say that FlashDevelop makes the Flash IDE look decidedly “limp”. So as far as I can tell the only thing that’s drooping slightly (which is an understatement) is Adobe and there persistence with a very sub standard text editing interface in Flash.
@Jason: Yeah, I don’t think anyone can or would argue that Flash lacks a lot as a coding environment.
My impression on this matter is that with Flex Builder and other products that already fill the gap ( FlashDevelop, SE|PY, etc ), they don’t see it as a priority. They would probably rather focus on new things ( inverse kinematics, 3D effects, etc ) and leave the coding environment to the Flex Builder team ( since they would never be able to satisfy everyone’s ideas of a great coding environment anyway ).
As for your question regarding large projects and svn integration in Flex Builder, since its built on Eclipse, you get all of the benefits and plugins that Eclipse allows.
One of those is a plugin called Subclipse. Subclipse integrates svn into Eclipse ( Flex Builder ) and allows for projects to be updated, committed, created, etc directly in the environment.
Multiple projects comes built into Eclipse ( Flex Builder ), which allows you to have several projects open at once and use as many as you want as libraries for other projects.
Flex Builder also offers the debugging and profiling environments to catch errors and watch memory consumption and overall performance of your application.
And I really hate to beat a dead horse, but having a Mac version ( and a Linux version currently in the works ) opens up the environment to other developers and allows you to work in tandem with developers that might be on a different OS.
I don’t however see Flex Builder and FlashDevelop as an “either or” situation. They both have strengths and weaknesses and offer the developer choice depending on the type and size of the project your working on.
1 with marshall, FlashDevelop is better than Flex Builder in most cases (for those who do code, I don’t know if either have a GUI for designing forms), for example I was very disappointed that Flex Builder lacks even some of the basics of any Windows application such as “redo”, F3 for “next search result” or so. Takes much less memory too and the interface is often clearer.
The advantage of Flex Builder however is that it’s cross-platform, in case some of your developers use OSX or Linux.
Just found out about FlashDevelop, can not beleive this tool existed out there for this long and I didn’t know about it. Who needs Flash CS4… FlashDevelope is the greatest development tool ever!