FlashTest Eclipse Plugin Alpha
Update: Thanks for all the feedback everyone. Let me tell you my setup that I’m using. First, I’m using Eclipse 3.4 which you can download here. Then I downloaded the Flex Builder 3.0.1 Eclipse plugin and installed it. Next I got the latest version of CFEclipse and installed it. I think I would rather use the latest version Eclipse and install things as plugins rather than use the stand-alone Flex Builder. I’m currently working on improving this to make it more consistent, but if you have the same setup as me it should work.
I have spent the last few days learning the ins and outs of Eclipse plugin development. This has been somewhat painful due to the fact that I’m still new to Eclipse and, oh yeah, I don’t know Java. But I have managed to build a simple plugin that allows you to test your FLA directly from Eclipse. This is a huge time saver as you don’t have to tab over to Flash and then test your movie. In the plugin I also automatically save the current file before testing the movie. What’s also nice is that the Flash IDE doesn’t even pop up. All you see if is the test movie window. Now this is very experimental as I’m still a total newbie at this stuff. One issue on Mac is that if you have any spaces in the path to your Eclipse installation, it won’t work. Just remove the spaces and things should be good. I’m not sure how things will work on Windows. Please let me know. I’m going to keep working on it to make it solid though.
So how am I doing this? I include a simple JSFL script with the plugin that gets executed when you hit the keyboard shortcut or press the icon in the toolbar. This script simply tests the current document. This idea of running JSFL scripts from Eclipse opens up a TON of opportunities for integration with Flash Professional.
To try out the current build, download the ZIP file, extract the contents to your Eclipse plugins folder, and then restart Eclipse. You should see a new icon in your toolbar. Click and hopefully it will jump over to Flash and test your movie. Let me know how it goes for you.
Lee
More Snip Tree View features!
I just found out it CAN do variable substitution like TextMate! Check out the video below.
Lee
New tutorial on customizing Flex Builder
I just uploaded the new tutorial that shows how to make some modifications to Flex Builder to make it into a lean, mean, ActionScript machine. I love TextMate because of the tab shortcuts and luckily there is a way to do something similar in Flex Builder. In this tutorial I show how to install a great snippets plugin and also talk about other ways to make Flex Builder more powerful for your ActionScript development.
Lee
Win $100,000 doing Flash development!
Update: This contest IS open to non-US residents as well.
I’m ecstatic to announce that I will be one of the judges for the $100,000 Killer App Challenge being put on by Ribbit. That’s right, $100,000 will be split up amongst the top winners who do the coolest stuff with the Ribbit technology. This is your chance to make the big time and pocket a huge amount of cash.
Go on over to the contest site to read all of the rules and get signed up to compete. I will be doing a tutorial on how to get started with Ribbit very shortly. What are you waiting for? Go and register now! Now don’t even try to bribe me by sending a new Canon 5D MKII to my house 
.
Lee
Flash and Flex Project Builder application
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Please upgrade your Flash Player
This is the content that would be shown if the user does not have Flash Player 6.0.65 or higher installed. |
Here is a cool little utility that I made that makes creating a Flex Builder project for Flash CS4 really easy. You basically give the application the project name and it creates the simplest possible Flex project including an FLA file. The project automatically references the Flash Player 10 SWC so you are good to go. What it creates is simply a document class and also copies over an FLA and renames it. All you do is import the new project into Flex Builder, double-click on the FLA to open it in Flash, and start coding. You can configure it via an XML file. This hasn’t been tested on a PC so let me know if it works. Watch the video below to see it in action. |
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