Thanks for everyone’s response to my previous post. All of that feedback is being read by the Flash team and it really does make a difference. But now I have something to ask of you. I would like to compile a list of any bugs/quirks/features that you have in regards to the code editor in the Flash IDE. If we can get a good list together quickly, I’ll see how many of them I can get the team to do for CS4. Brand new features will likely not make it but they are good to list anyway. The three categories are defined as:
This is an existing feature in the editor that is just plain broken.
Quirks
These are minor tweaks to the editor that, if fixed, would make all our lives much easier. I suspect most will fall into this category.
Features
These are full-blown new features. One example would be to have custom class introspection. These represent quite a bit of work for the team.
Just format your responses similarly to mine. Again, I can’t promise anything, but we should be able to get some of these into CS4.
Spread the word!
Lee
QUIRK: On timline scripts, make code hinting appear whenever you type ‘this.’ For timeline scripts this should always be a MovieClip (aka the main timeline).
QUIRK: You should get the code hinting drop down whenever you type ‘new ‘.
FEATURE: If I have a MC called foo on the stage, I should get code hinting in the editor when I type ‘foo.’. Basically, the editor should know the instance names and types of things on the stage.
FEATURE: Introspection and code hinting for custom classes.
FEATURE: Some type of snippet support with shortcut key insertion. Essentailly a much better version of the ESC shortcuts already in the editor.
QUIRK: Function/loop/consitional blocks should automatically create the closing } brace and place the cursor in the correct position. Make it the same as Flex.
FEATURE: Just rip out the Script Assist feature as it is more confusing than actually doing the code yourself. Make room on the menu bar for something we can actually use.
FEATURE: Make the editor extensible so the community can help with its development. I’m sure they would the opportunity to help fix it
Feature: Timeline should have a quickCode feature. When I double-click on the timeline I should be able to start typing in the code I want then and there. This is a quickCode I should only see the code I have or be able to add new code. If I want to use the main editor then I can edit in there.
BUG: OS X.5.1 – Opened class files seem to be randomly renamed to another opened class file (.as)
QUIRK: If your working on a script in the timeline and then you switch to edit the code of a AS file the Action Script Editor window should disappear, not just fade and blur out. its annoying to have to close the action script editor window every time you switch files. As lee mentioned, introspection and code hinting for custom classes is a big one on my list also.
Quirk,
Code Hinting shouldn’t give up if a parameter in one object is itself an object.
E.g at around 6:40 in your “Advanced Filter Effects” tutorial on gotoAndLearn.com you start adding parameters for the applyFilter, when you put in the bmd.rect the code hinting stops, but comes back for the point object that you put in next and then stops again after you close that object. The code hint if possible should know that you are still adding parameters for the previous object and tell me what there are, closing up each object and reverting to the code hinting of the current one as I go.
Thanks for all that you do Lee, you’re awesome!
Chris
FEATURE: Ability to set an external editor as editor of choice for code files.
FEATURE: Application overview: Who’s importing who, what’s listening to what, and what is public/private all up in there…
QUIRK: Certain fonts if available in the Fonts Library seem to slow the IDE to a crawl. Or maybe it’s having ALOT of fonts, or something…idk
BUG: When editing ActionScript class files, if you have an [Inspectable] tag above a property, and then use auto-format command, the [Inspectable] tag gets a semicolon added to it ([Inspectable];) when the component you’re creating is packaged up and imported into Flash, the properties are no longer visible and you must manually delete all the semicolons.
Better general code introspection with regard to custom classes and inline/timeline custom functions (especially hinting with parameters so I don’t send a string into something that expects a number.)
Did anyone mention code completion (hitting “tab” selects the top hint) and manually spawning hinting (hitting [CTRL]+[SPACE] should popup a hint list from nothing based on where I am in the code.)
If we keep harping on this, can we get it in the next version? Code complete/introspection on custom timeline and class code seems to be mentioned CONSTANTLY! Please, please, please just work with someone like FlashDevelop and get this into CS4. My goodness, FlashDevelop is opensource! You ought to be able to open up what they have done and find a way to add it to CS4. I think all would agree that this feature alone would be worth a later CS4 delivery and a huge justification in our companies to jump to Flash Pro CS4.
QUIRK: This is small, but to have the ability to customize the color of numbers would be a plus; right now you can just change Keywords, Identifiers, Comments and Strings.
QUIRK: inability to change text highlight color. When viewing white text on black background, the text becomes invisible on selection. But probably wouldn’t switch from TextMate even if this was fixed
BUG: I can’t nail it down. But it seems that sometimes parentheses are removed during autoformat.
ie. ((5+4)*2) gets reformatted as (5+4*2)
FEATURE: Please add:
-Ctrl+D for duplicating a line
-Ctrl+T for tracing out a selection resulting in trace(“Selection: ” + Selection);
FEATURE: User-defined code folding regions that can be persisted and are unaffected by code structure, a la “regions” in the Visual Studio IDE.
Example: The “collapse between braces” button will persist until the code is unfolded, and focus leaves that particular code block, at which time it will be normal text again.
FEATURE: Either one of the following when the compiler spits out errors at compile time: a) Highlights or underlines problem code in the editor, or in some other way indicates that “your code broke here.” b) The ability to double-click an error in the Output window and have it jump to the appropriate code block.
Make CMD/CNTRL+F12 (Publish) work while in an .as file. Give us a means of pinning a .fla as the default (active) publishing file.
I hate making a change and having to tab to the .fla (which I’ve extracted all of my code out of and into .as files because it’s the only way to survive Flash programming), publish, then return to the tab.
QUIRK: Setting the Actionscript version in the IDE only sets the publish options. Executing help on functions in an AS3 file will sometimes result in receiving the AS2 reference (Example: typing ‘this.gotoAndStop(1)’ and pressing F1 will result in documentation for the gotoAndStop global function, and following the link on the same page for the MovieClip.gotoAndStop method results in ActionScript 2.0 documentation.
QUIRK: During a straight text search, Flash help will invariably NOT provide class documentation before some other, less important documentation (Example: searching for “bytesLoaded” brings up the “ActionScript 2.0 Migration” document, and I have to search Google, or AS3-specific documentation just to find a class that has a “bytesLoaded” method). Edit: Looking at it with fresh eyes, and not while I’m in the middle of slinging code, it appears that it may be bringing up the appropriate results, but it is buried in tons of other “relevant” search results, nested a level or two deep. If that’s the case, then there are far too many options to choose from.
Note: this may actually be very similar to my previous quirk.
FETURE: better code auto formatting.
FEATURE: append import declarations in package when using a new class in the code (like Flex’s).
BUG: on PPC based Macs – moving between documents inside the IDE or when finishing an export or testing movie – the IDE freezes for a few seconds (heard that it has something to do with the system list of fonts – then maybe define a font folder just for Flash).
Thanks!
@ Micheal,
Doesn’t your B) already worklike that!?!
I want almost the same experience as editing ActionScript 3 in Flex Builder.
case-insensitive code hinting.
if this doesn’t go into the next version, i’m switching to silverlight!
QUIRK: Make it possible to see all properties and methods available for a class in the documentation, including items inherited from higher level objects.
Currently, if you want to see everything a movieclip can do, you have to go through each inheritance which makes it very hard to get a good overview.
Something that I just remembered when I opened Flash just now, can we get the workspace layouts improved? When you save a layout set up for dual monitors, every time you restart Flash it moves everything back onto your primary monitor and you have to drag your panels back over. Why can’t it remember!?
I second Lee:
FEATURE: Introspection and code hinting for custom classes.
Without this the code editor is as useful as Notepad when coding AS3.
FEATURE: code introspection for custom classes including hinting of parameters… I realize this is a lot of work, but it makes coding so much faster.
Maybe the focus should be on getting Flex to be an editor for a Flash Project, not getting the Flash Editor up to the Flex Editor standard. I realize this is currently possible to some extent. The issue that keeps me from doing so now is the inability to access symbols within a MovieClip without some extra “voodoo”, or making said class dynamic.
I know you and I were on the same page in thinking that Flex 3′s code editor should just be used inside Flash CS3. I didn’t know however, that it would be a huge undertaking. So if that isn’t possible, some simple features/bugs/quirks that I would want are as follows:
QUIRK: AutoFormat. This thing can ruin your code. If you’ve used it before, you probably know this by now. (I.E. AF always left-aligns my commented functions…in my IDE at least).
FEATURES: 1. I second Ctrl+T for tracing, Ctrl+D to duplicate lines.
2. If I could take only my favorite things about Flex Builder, it would be the Outline panel as it is, Auto-import of fully qualified class paths, and the navigator panel.
Really, just make it like FDT 3.0. Cuz, that’s easy, huh guys?! JK.
Hey Lee,
Code snippes like in DW, that will be so cool.
So the code you are finding your self write again and again.
I write on a Panel for our company with the stuff we do all the time…
and the Code snippes is one of my ideas.?
@Chris: Yeah, it does seem to work like that. I want to change my answer, then. b) would show run-time errors similar to compile-time errors, in that it would indicate…well, more information than it does now, which is (I believe) the last thing on the call stack.
FEATURE: the ability to search through library items. right now, you can only search for symbols, text, fonts, etc. for items that are on the stage. i’ve found myself many times searching for a particular set of actionscript code inside of a movieclip that is NOT on the stage but in the library. also, i would love to be able to search for a movieclip in the library that i’ve lost because i have so many folders and movieclips that i can’t seem to find the right movieclip. it’d be great if i could search the library for this item!
this is easy. Make it be able to find as many errors as it once could in the version before. In addition, it would be great to allow some of the good things that flex can do. Code hinting for custom classes, being able to CTRL+Click a class member and go straight to the line of code referring to that class member. Automatically tell you there are problems in your code as you type your code.
The tween class seems to stop at times in the middle of the actionscript driven animation.
QUIRK: case-insensitive code hinting
FEATURE: code comparison
QUIRK: self closing brackets (functions, loops, etc.)
QUIRK: i want to be able to pin more than 1 script tabs in the actions window ( hmmm…i can foresee some usabilitity issues though…)
QUIRK: when editing an AS file i would like the option to pin a target fla. sometimes i’ll ctr+enter and publish the wrong fla then i have to reselect the intended fla to publish.
FEATURE: firefox-like search [and replace] (non-modal)
QUIRK: find and replace that highlights the line of code that you just double clicked in the results list
FEATURE: ctrl+scroll zoom
FEATURE: jump to line number field
FEATURE: split code area in two or more. for instance top half could show lines 30-50 and and bottom half could show 90-110, or vice versa. kinda like Excel pane freezing. not very important but could cut down on scrolling time.
FEATURE: open file under cursor and package/methods explorer like eclipse IDE
quirk: encase selected text in qoutes if you press double qoutes
quirk: generate opening and closing qoutes and place cursor inside them
quirk: generate opening and closing parens and place cursor inside them
feature: dropdown of all the functions in a class
feature: bookmark flag in the gutter that you can add and cycle through
see textmate for all of these.
FEATURE
To be able to add Tasks as you can in Eclipse FDT for example (TODO and similar)
QUIRK: one thing that has been annoying me immensely since I’ve been using Flash CS3 on a Mac is that the focus automatically changes from the code editor to the stage after publishing. This has caused me some delay and worse, has made certain items on the stage mysteriously disappear. This is because I tried to delete a line of code, but because the focus was on the stage (even though the stage was not even visible) it deleted a movieclip behind the scenes…
BUG: When I have one or more .as-files open, but no .fla-files , and I place the cursor inside a command in the code and hit F1 for help I get “Error opening URL”.
BUG: Sometimes I get “Error with autoformat near line …” for no obvious reason when I click Autoformat.
QUIRK: More configuration options for Auto Format: How to indent comments, if blank lines should be removed or not.
QUIRK: If I check for errors (or auto format) and get some errors, it would be nice to automaticly move the cursor to the first error line in the file, maybe even highlight all error lines by a subtile colour coding of the background. Without have to double clik the error in the output window.
FEATURE: More printing options like: Print with/without line numbers, more color choices, with/without page numbers.
FEATURE: A function to remove all comments from the file.
I am really wondering why the guys from FDT could bulid a editor for flash, that is 10 times better than the flex editor and 100 times better than the editor within cs3? the team consists of 2 developers only!
everyone who used fdt knows what I am talking about
[feature] search/replace is hideous. how about the ability to find a selected piece of code elsewhere in the code simply by pressing f3? And the modal behaviour of the search dialogue is horrid. I often want to find something else after finding my first searched term and I want to copy that second term from the ActionScript windo into the search tool but I can’t until I close it first.
FEATURE: For simple mistakes (typos, missing parentheses, etc.) make AS3 error checking like spell check. Underline error, RIGHT CLICK, choose substitute – all in place.
QUIRK/FEATURE: Please fix properties inline code hinting. The line length (yellow strip drop down for filter properties for example) can be ridiculous and hard to use. Why not show an organized list along with available options?) There’s got to be a better UI/UX solution.
FEATURE: Developer’s notes. Stickies or a page embedded in project file where I can keep notes, code snippets, help urls related to the project.
I dont know if this is the right place, but as a heavy user of FDT and Flashdevelop i like the idea of having an external IDE. If it is possible to do a plugin like JSEclipse from Adobe labs for ActionScript i would appreciate it.
eestes: “feature: dropdown of all the functions in a class”
Like the way Dreamweaver has it? (not sure about other editors)
Right-click -> functions -> Select function name
And page scrolls to function clicked.
Feature:
The Search/Find/Replace feature in the editor could be better.
Multiline searching/replacing and current document / current folder searching/replacing is useful.
Dreamweaver’s Search/Find features are great.
Feature:
The internal editor has a long way to go… First thing I’d add is the possibility to setup an external editor (Flex builder, FlashDevelop ect) so that if you click on a compiler error you’d open up the file in your external editor.
do everything what eclipse-FDT does
Hello Lee – thanks for this consultation. I head a team of proper Flash developers who use the Flash IDE for scripting OOP AS3 projects. I’ve asked around my office and these are our requests, in priority order:
1 – Stop re-compressing all my JPEGs and sounds every time I change a line of code and re-publish my swf. Sometimes I have a lot of assets in my FLA and it takes 30 seconds+ to publish. This slows the Flash development process down massively. I know you can get round this by using external assets/swfs, but you shouldn’y have to.
2 – An auto-generated class-browser / project window that shows your custom classes etc.
3 – More intelligent code hinting and error checking, including for custom classes.
4 – Find and replace across mulitple .as files.
Feature:
Find and Replace feature could extend to the actionscript for the entire movie, not just the individual frame. Would make working on older movies much easier.
already said, but i vote for
quirk: flex code hinting
feature: ctrl+space -> go to definition
quirk: code hinting: “var a:Number” works, “var a : Number” does not.
quirk: do not snap the actions panel to everything when dragging it around (it was better in Flash
feature: /**+enter to make comment block
- Feature: code collapsing for all functions
- Bug: OSX 10.4.9 > onSetFocus of the IDE the cursor is blinking in the code editor, but it has no focus. When you type, nothing appears there.
- quick: When working on an AS2 FLA, I get AS3 code hints (XML.ignoreWhiteSpace instead of XML.ignore)
Feature:
str+click on a class definition to open the class (like in flex)
Bug:
Text input rate gets very slow if the code is large under vista
Feature: Extensive integration with Flex Builder.
Most of the feature request above are solved by Eclipse / Flex Builder, so it would not make much sense replicating everyting from FB.
I guess many would like to be able to code in FB, but still compile in with Flash (when working on animation-intsensive projects anyhow). I know this is out of the scope of the original question, but you should still take this up with the Flex team.
The most essential things would be
- Having Flex understand that the project needs to be compiled with the Flash IDE.
- Enabling debugging of the Flash-compiled movie in Flex
QUIRK: No way to differentiate from AS2/AS3 when editing AS files. Code hint/Autofill are defaulted to AS3 not like in the FLA where you can choose either AS2 or AS3.
QUIRK:
managable code area while seraching in the code (now it is disabled while finding). And SEPY’s search features would be nice too.
Sander wrote:
- quick: When working on an AS2 FLA, I get AS3 code hints (XML.ignoreWhiteSpace instead of XML.ignore)
Greg wrote:
QUIRK: No way to differentiate from AS2/AS3 when editing AS files. Code hint/Autofill are defaulted to AS3 not like in the FLA where you can choose either AS2 or AS3.
This is part of a similar quirk / issue.
Within the actions panel, on the left side (the Toolbox) you can select AS1+AS2 or AS3. For quite a while I had an issue where I was opening up a AS2 fla but it would give me code hints for AS3 (the Toolbox didn’t change to the correct version).
Quirk:
Could we add a quicker way to check/change the Toolbox, whilst it’s collapsed. (Maybe in place of the Script Assist, have a combox to show/change the AS Version)
[Feature]
I posted about this previous to the CS3 release, and probably before the 8 release, so here goes.
In JSFL, add another object like document, or make other file types documents, which ever is easier. Right now in JSFL you only have access to FLA files and, finally in CS3, specific locations in the Actions panel. However, there is still this disconnect between the Actions panel and editing code in an AS or JSFL file. Having two different locations for writing code is odd, although I realize it’s useful to have both.
If JSFL could access ANY file type that is open as a tab the Flash community could help develop many features people ask for, like code snippets.
BUG / QUIRK :
On a mac pressing “End” takes you do the bottom of the viewer window as opposed to the end of a line. Same thing with “Home” takes you to the top of the window as opposed to the beginning of a line.
[Feature]
One of the nicest features for extending the IDE has pretty much died because people find it too difficult to work with: SWFPanels.
SWFPanels provide a visual interface for JSFL developers to give IDE users. Instead of writing one-off commands SWFPanels allows developers to add some real functionality. Take a look at gProject panel as an example. But even gProject needed (what I consider) hacks to provide real functionality. Because it’s so difficult to write JSFL code directly in ActionScript (MMExecute), gProject calls an external JSFL file that opens a XUL panel to communicate with the main panel after having executed its code.
What a PITA.
PLEASE, add a library that can be included with SWFPanels that allows us to access JSFL through ActionScript. At the very least, if we could associate a JSFL file with a SWFPanel, and be able to use EI between the two, that would help. And fix tabbing.
BUG:
the autoformat function removes parentheses from conditional statements. This bug only occurs when working in .as files, it functions correctly in the actions panel for both as2 and as3 files.
Just wanted to add my 2 cents to the help section problems – I find the AS dictionaries very difficult to use, because the search feature doesn’t prioritize results. A search for MovieClip should deliver the MovieClip class as the first result – it’s actually down at number 30 or something. For this reason, I usually find myself using Google to search the online version of these docs.
I realize this isn’t the actual editor we’re talking about. But it’s obviously related heavily to coding and to me it’s the most glaring error in the environment.
Thanks!
FEATURE: Have an external data panel. Say you’re testing a swf that imports an XML file. You can open up the data panel and see the cached XML appear. That way you can see the structure without opening up Dreamweaver or a browser. Then have a button in that panel to update the data is needed.
FEATURE: Have a panel or feature in the Actions panel that will break down in a tree which functions get called and by whom, be it an Timer, Event, Button, another function etc.
QUIRK: Have an option to prevent AutoFormat from deleting blank lines. I like to keep a few blank lines between functions, but AutoFormat deletes them.
Quirk: Copy and Paste from help panel to actionscript window does not work (i’m on a mac not sure if it does this on pc as well). You can right click and copy and then paste normally.
On the whole, performance and responsiveness of the editor is important to me (ie. fast text scrolling, quick window opening, etc). But I think I found a subtle but annoying flaw… When you click on a new line in a polished editor like TextMate, the I-beam cursor flashing animation resets and is solid when you click on a new line, or place in the code. The IDE editor just always keeps the I-beam cursor animating without to respect of its movement or mouse/keyboard action. The net effect is that when you click, you may have to wait a few milliseconds to get confirmation that you indeed did just sucessesfuly move the insertion point to the place you intended. Subtle, but it adds up.
BUG: When you type import com.yahoo.astra.fl. you get the code hinting for the fl.* package.
Quirks: Bring back the ESC shortcuts when coding for ActionScript 3.0
I’m sure this has been mentioned already, but the autoformating needs some work. sometimes especially with papervision3d formats the braces in the incorrect spot and can cause one to spend some time correcting the change if not noticed right away. flash develop is a good flash editor I’d also add the class and MovieClip code hinting features that this program has.
when you use a project in flash, and have multiple FLA files, whenever you ‘Test project’ it will compile all .fla files in the project.
I would like to be able to have it compile only the .fla files that have been updated since the last compile, (i.e. where the swf is older than the .fla file) and a ‘build project/build all’ function.
When I click on help button,
A magnificent creature appears for me decompress…
REQUEST – give away an AS 3.0 Project plugin for Eclipse with each purchase of Flash so that it is a complete product and buyers aren’t forced to use 3rd party tools.
BUG/QUIRK: Don’t make the editor enforce its own line endings and the UTF-8 BOM when saving. Makes source code management and diffing significantly more of a pain when switching between Mac and PC.
FEATURE: Better compiler error messages. The messages I get are confusing at best and rarely help me solve my issue. A lot of the time the error message is indirectly related to what is actually wrong in the script.
Feature: View both your fla & imported actionscript file(s) in two panes at the same time, and edit accordingly.
[FEATURE] Easier-to-use AS3 components for us non-programmy folks. It’s kind of hard to use AS3 components in comparison to AS2 components. Although kudos to Adobe for the much easier to customize skins!
I also 2nd the code-snippets idea. I’d love to be able to reuse stuff I’ve created in other projects. Again, as I’m not a programmer, I’m not likely to create my own classes but would still like to re-use code.
Quirk/Feature/Bug – Runtime error messages are output into the output window and provide almost no information. This is strange and very unhelpful – all errors should be helpful and in an error panel, not the output window.
eg)
//CODE TO RECREATE
var clip = new Sprite();
addChild(clip);
clip.addEventListener(Event.ENTER_FRAME, func);
function func (ev:Event):void {
removeChild(clip);
}
//END CODE
FEATURE: Smart code hinting:
For example if I start typing
var t:Timer = new Timer(1000);
t.add
it should allow me to press a key for it to automatically fill out
t.addEventListener(TimerEvent.TIMER,
and the same for
btn.ad
to
btn.addEventListener(MouseEvent.
etc…
There doesn’t seemt to be a handler for onReleaseOutside for the various icons along the top of the script window.
FEATURE: Esc + f + 1 or similar should automatically create:
function ):void {
}
and place the cursor before the ).
QUIRK: FIND AND REPLACE NEEDS TO HAVE THE OPTION OF ONLY AFFECTING TEXT IN THE SELECTED AREA! Otherwise it is only half a find and replace function.
[Feature]
Keep the internal editor the way it is, and create an external editor that includes the debugger and can compile from the IDE. Strip down Dreamweaver, or a modified FlexBuilder that uses the flash classes instead of Flex and the IDE instead of MTASC, or a cross-platform version of FlashDevelop or FDT. Package it with Flash.
Or add that functionality to FlexBuilder (why isn’t it there now, why the workarounds) — I’ll pay $250 for that.
If it’s that hard to modify the editor in the IDE, split it off and build it in a future-proof manner.
FEATURE: 1) Create a way to open a class file from the code editor directly instead of hunting through your files to find it.
2) In a class enable error messages ability to tell you which class you need to import for the class you are referencing.
Both Flash and Flex need ActionScript code formatting very much bad. (right-click, format source code)
Beau
Code-view color.
In most modern IDEs, users are allowed to customize their text/code/background colors. Flash does this, but is limited to 256 colors and only using a color picker. Please allow text-based hex colors.
(Bug: Preferences color-pickers don’t work/show up in Leopard.)
Longer/adjustable collapsed-code hints.
A block of code starting with “private function myUsefulFunction()” collapses to just “private…”. We can use a comment line to get around this, but still can only see “// myUs…” Please provide longer default lengths, and allow us to specify longer if desired.
Left column markers.
When I first used Flash, I thought the break-points dots were line markers. Would be good to actually have selectable-color column markers. Meanwhile break-points could be more graphic and obvious; perhaps like those “sign here” arrow post-its.
Default Print Size.
A 10 font size may seem small on the screen, but is HUGE when printed on paper. Would be beneficial for printed text to default to a smaller font than what’s on screen, or at least give us the option as a preset. (After I print 8 pages is not the time for me to remember to “zoom out” my text for printing…)
Better error codes.
Not exactly IDE-related, but AS3 code errors suck. Way too obscure. They don’t fail silently. But they fail cryptically.
Add compile-error checking to the Check Syntax button.
We used to have this. Now we don’t. It wasn’t perfect back then, but it was far better than we have now.
[QUIRKS:]
The Timeline Window should remember it’s size. Switching between different opened apps it becomes annoying to always resize the window to see all the layers again.
[BUG:]
Is it just happening to me, that once in a while the TestMovie-window
get’s all mixed up with the several IDE subwindows. It looses the top most position. Maximizing it helps, only to face the same issue when testing again. Only restarting the IDE fixes the problem.
[FEATURE:]
Please include automatic closing } brace and i surely agree with “lee” on the issue of code hint not recognizing ‘foo’ as an mc, never mind that i just declared it as :MovieClip. I’m a complete newbe with ActionScript, an i’m depending on a working code hint. Not to offend anybody, but maybe one should have a peek at the way Microsoft handles code hinting. Get that done and i’ll ditch MS where ever i can.
Oh, search and replace: please add “selected text”
FEATURE
Clicking Classnames will open the class file.
i.e. var ball:Ball = new Ball(); clicking ball opens the the Ball.as file.
Can it be true? The Flash editor is getting a face lift! Thank you!
As an ex-Flash IDE developer who badly wants to “come home” as it were, I can state categorically what would have me reconsider Flash as a viable coding environment would be:
1) Allow pinned script locations to be saved with the FLA. Simply eschewing timeline-based coding is a cop-out, not a solution to the inadequacies of the Actions panel in this regard. You have no idea how annoying it is to pin a dozen scripts while working on a complex FLA which employs a lot of timeline-based code, only to have these ‘preferences’ stripped away when the FLA is closed and open again. What a time waster. Please improve our ability to “bookmark” script locations in an FLA.
2) Merge the Movie Explorer, the “Insert Target Path” and the Actions Explorer into one panel, so that frames, script locations, asset names and instance names can all be traversed and introspected from one place, forever ending the nightmare of the ‘needle in a haystack’ routine of finding embedded code. I have always maintained that using embedded code throughout an FLA is only a bad thing because the authoring tool (the Flash IDE) has not kept up with how complex the structure of an FLA can truly get, with timelines, embedded clips, and code. We are programming and designing in a 4D environment with 2D tools, and this needs to be vastly improved.
3) Improve the debugger to work with this new “explorer” (see above) to include a dynamic introspection tool similar to the debugger, but more powerful like XRay, which would allow for a more powerful tree-like traversal of both fixed and dynamically instantiated objects, only including a visual representation of timeline and asset information.
4) Improve the code hinting and completion to be more on par with Flex Builder 2 can achieve, such as hinting of newly declared properties, referenced SWC libraries, custom imports and automatic function closures. Including the refactoring capabilities of FlexBuilder 3 would be overkill, but the above is a must. I would love to close up my copy of FlashDevelop and SEPY forever for Flash projects.
5) Learn from Skinner’s gProject. Hell, buy it off him. Give us a project panel that is actually useful, which can create templated code files saving us hours of time recoding the same import statements or class definitions, saving us from include overuse. Get the Actions panel to integrate with a truly feature-rich project panel which can not only manage project code but assets as well, maybe some kind of gProject Panel/Library Panel/FlexBuilder Navigator/Adobe Bridge hybrid. Give us the tools to manage a truly super-powered coding and design multimedia project within Flash.
Thanks for listening Adobe,
Joseph Balderson
Sorry if I went a little off topic there, just to say that the Actions panel, ideally, would integrate and interact more seamlessly with other feature-heightened elements of the Flash IDE.
Just thought of one more crucial feature:
automatic insertion of imports.
This will make learning AS3 much much easier for beginners not fully used to class-based programming.
FEATURE
- If the actionspanel keeps existing: Button to maximize/resore the actionspanel. Just normal windows-behaviour.
- When you call a function that needs a color, open the color-panel inline. Just like dreamweaver when you type bgcolor=” . Its very handy if you use custom colours alot.
- Indentational Guides like FlashDevelop
Use FDT
FEATURE (and sortof a quirk)
Atm 9.0.2 AS3 has the worst code completion I have ever used – if one of them has used MS Visual Studio with something like Visual Basic, they’ll know exactly how I mean it should be done. That also means detection of classes that already exist and code completion for those (although this will, as you said, probably be too much work).
It would be great to get it up again. Also, can we have a better unhandled exception dialog
When you name variables starting with the dollar sign, “$”, you should be able to double click the variable name and it will select the “$” as well. This is done in Flex, but not in the flash editor.
FEATURE: Make the help docs completely cross reference-able. IE – instead of saying at the bottom of each help page “See also…” it would be great if all text that had relevant information in the doc would be linkable.
FEATURE: Bookmarking in the help docs. The help docs are often a mangled web of information where some information on a particular topic is in several places, -scattered. When I finally do find what I am looking for, I want to bookmark it so that I can easily find it later.
FEATURE: (this is a big one) I have been requesting this feature since Flash MX. When you create a button library element, the timeline for it is different than a movieclip element. Obviously there is something different going on with a button than a MC. Why can we not have a SOUNDTRACK library item? The structure of it would be in the vein of a Acid Pro or other music sequencing apps. Why is this important? Because it would allow us to score a soundtrack with minimal file size. A developer would only have to import small audio loops. As it stands, we have to create large audio files that blow out our file size OR we have to have a VERY repetitive loop OR we have to drop a sound track as an option. If we could pull a few loops in and sequence them we could create sound tracks that “render” at runtime. This would also allow us to perhaps have the sound track alter the loops playing based on events on stage. This soundtrack library element would be great for Flash games and Flash sites that are centered around entertainment.
FEATURE: While talking about sound…I want to have PITCH as an option in the sound object. I also want to be able to change the speed of a sound sound object (slowing it down/speeding it up). Why is this important? Because repetitive sound in an app is very limiting and annoying and it causes users to shut the sound off. Can you imagine playing a FPS, for example, and there is only ONE sound for a rifle firing? No…the video game industry builds sound engines that dynamically alter a single sound file’s pitch and duration, -thus creating a 3D audio effect. We could build better sound engines in Flash with this feature.
QUIRK: The help file examples are often OVERKILL. For example, if I want to simply learn about a particular topic, just show me how to use that particular thing I am interested in. Often I want the BARE MINIMUM (to understand the concept of the item in question). What happens is, I look up the example in the help file to find a full blown app (most of which has nothing to do with my original need). Then I have to cut through the fat to get down to the actual thing I am there to see. This causes issues because I can’t always tell what is and isn’t imperative and so what is supposed to be a clear example turns into a trial-and-error session to get to the meat of the code that I need.
How about this,…give us a BARE bones example of how to use the code we are looking for. THEN you can show us the same code in a full app context.
FEATURE: A functions pop down selector! nuff said
QUIRK: Focus from code editor is given to stage after test movie. So you return from checking something to edit your code again you start typing away and dont realise that your just switching tools or worse deleting stuff from stage. (happens to me daily)
QUIRK: Output window and Compiler errors disappear when flash losses focus – when you switch to external editor to fix an error or address some problem as a result of trace statement these window disappears. Forcing you to either copy paste the error message or do a constant ALT-TAB dance to re-read what your trying to address – terrible workflow, highly annoying. Let me control what windows disappear please.
Possible Solution : let us set these as real windows instead of the annoying handicapped windoids they are.
BUG: Sometimes the Autoformat create some bugs in the code like “;” where shouldn’t have, and things like this.
QUIRK: The editor should be like the “Flash develop”, this software is realy good, the code hinting and another things.
SUGESTION FOR THE FLASH PLAYER: Actionscript run equal in firefox and IE;
FEATURE:
Having the option to find and replace across all open .as files similar to how it works in Dreamweaver.
1. Automatic import statements
2. Code hinting for custom classes
Added to the Flash editor
or
The ability to work with Flash added to Flexbuilder. How are we even still talking about this so long after Flexbuilder 2′s release?
Come on Adobe. Believe it or not. Quite a lot of people want to use AS3 for things other than RIAs even though that is all anyone from Adobe (Present company excepted) seems to talk about nowadays.
FEATURE: Support for ASDoc – as in Flex2, but preferably with a GUI rather than command line. And while I am dreaming, how about UML-to-AS3 support? Better still, round trip UML/AS3/ASDoc support!
For programming Video player in flash: FLVPlayBack.stop(); seems not to work as likely as it supposed to be,it just paused, But if you apply it to sound, like: any_sound.stop(); it works well! I guess there is some bugs with it.
“Autoformat” of the current flash finds errors where there is, moreover spoils with the code in a few moments. Changing the color scheme would be too great.
SEPY has a way to traverse a XML file and get the nodes you need. This would speed up my Flash development if I didnt have to count the nodes myself. Often times the XML structure changes, so then I have to redo all my nodes again.
how can i made my own charcter
Feature: A decent code formatter. What I’d really like is a formatter that not only indents mxml tags and actionscript properly, but would organize the attributes within an mxml tag (for example, I always put the id attribute first). Organized code is much easier to follow.
I 2nd #89
Features: It would be cool, if collapsing and expanding code would be more comfortable. When you reexpand the code the little arrow next to it should remain. So it can be recollapsed with only 1 click.
The Scriptaid could be more intuitive and allow typing code, so you don’t have to switch between the Scriptaid and the usual code editor.
Features:
Open the code editor in a separate window (= dual screen support)
Dream, and if you want to be taken seriously:
All FlashDevelop features + Flex Debugging or even VisualStudio Debugging.
Add some visual information to the code block currently being edit so that it will be easier to see what code is in a particular code block. For example like FlashDevelop does by adding lines in front of a block:
function xyz()
[{]
|
| //long code block
|
[}]
or like Eclipse does by adding small squares around the open and close block tags:
function xyz()
[{]
//code block
[}]
What would even work better would be that the block currently being edited or moused over would get a slightly different background colour.
[edit: made a mistake in the previous posted sample pseudo code]
Add some visual information to the code block currently being edit so that it will be easier to see what code is in a particular code block. For example like FlashDevelop does by adding lines in front of a block:
function xyz()
{
|
| //long code block
|
}
or like Eclipse does by adding small squares around the open and close block tags:
function xyz()
[{]
//code block
[}]
What would even work better would be that the block currently being edited or moused over would get a slightly different background colour.
The thing I miss in all code editors is the option to WYSIWYG editing of comment fields meant for api documentation. An integrated (AS2Doc) documentation authoring module would be nice too
…or some way for third parties to offer this kind of features as an add-on?
Maybe Adobe could offer a plug-in system that would offer third parties an opportunity to develop fully integrated plugins, like code editors, documentation authoring tools, debuggers, profilers, code generators, etc.
My own wishes are as follows:
Code hinting for custom classes
Code hinting from variables (variables are all typed now, so it should be easy to get hints)
Code hinting for parents (internal tracking of hierarchies to allow hints)
Automatic parentheses and quotation wrapping
Remove trace statements with a single click, or at least comment them out
After typing “new ” it should be able to guess and hint the type of the variable if it’s been declared (eg if var mpt:Timer; was declared earlier, typing “mpt = new ” should offer “Timer()” as a hint.
Code hint chosen by hitting “.” then offer the hint for the next level
Customisable colour coding for the backgrounds of code areas to show functions and loops clearly (eg getting darker the deeper the nest)
Shortcuts for function and loop creation
Ability to print out code with line numbers
Separate text size preferences for screen and print
Shortcut to access assets in the library, and recognise type for hinting
Automatic import statements, a la Flex Builder
Sidebar for external data (XML, etc)
Please…
QUIRK: leave commented code unchanged when auto formating is applied.
FEATURE: Ctrl + D duplicates selection or current line if nothing is selected.
FEATURE: Ctrl + Down ou Ctrl + Up moves a selection up or down on the code. If nothing is selected the current line is moved.
FEATURE: Shortcut to make editor fullscreen.
FEATURE: A bundle system like Textmate have. You type ‘function’ press tab and the editor writes the rest. Again, Textmate is the better way to undertand this.
Congrat’s for the idea.
FEATURE: A bundle editor, so the comunit can write bundle to new API’s.
FEATURE: A project manager just like on Textmate.
QUIRK: Function/loop/conditional blocks > hilite (=different colour) opening & closing {}’s when the cursor is right next to any of them.
QUIRK: Function/loop/conditional blocks > show a vertical (dotted) line which is also hilited in the previous case.
Both of these features are present in the free Notepad++ editor, which I use for html/php/general text. BTW: I’ve been actionscripting for almost 10 years now and have always used the code editor in the IDE.
FEATURE: Custom class introspection. This would be a huge improvement.
FEATURE: An option to auto-close brackets and strings.
FEATURE: Live debugging.
FEATURE: Code completion for class instantiation.
FEATURE: Code completion for common keywords (“function”,”public”,”private”, etc…)
FEATURE: Code/Project navigator.
FEATURE: The IDE should take over managing package/directory structure. I should be able to drag & drop a .as file into another directory, and have the IDE update it’s address along with packages importing it. If somewhere down the line, I really wish I’d placed ‘MyPackage.as’ somewhere else, it can be a pain to relocate it…
Would live to see some kind of “perspectives” (as in eclipse), where users can be in one state to deal with the graphics and another to do the code editing…
I’m quite happy with the code editor. It’s small lightweight and easy enough to use.
I’d say build a separate code editor for serious developers and keep the Flash editor neat & nimble. I’ve used SEPY and FlashDevelop for some projects, but for most I don’t need or want all those advanced features. They’d just get in the way.
Currently I like my options. Most people who moan about the editor are probably those who never use it, so consider that before listening to them.
custom keyword syntax coloring, editable in the syntax XML files (Configuration\ActionsPanel\)
I know you’re asking about flash, but it would be nice if Flex had a “Simulate Download” profiler like Flash does.
Feature
We need a way to stop the debugger while it’s waiting to connect. If I know the debugger is not going to be able to connect for whatever reason I have to wait the 2 minutes before I can try again.
Feature
Help people get into ActionScript 3 by giving them template classes. When someone specifies a document class, don’t just display a message saying one will be created for you, and then not create one where the user can see/edit it. Instead, if a class doesn’t exist, ask the user if they’d like to choose from a template or select an existing AS file. That should be true of symbols in the library as well.
Feature
Fix the codehinting so that it’s not tied to undocumented, ungodly XML files. As someone who practically slit their wrists trying to decode codehinting files in Flash MX and then the minor changes in 8 and then with somewhat improved changes in CS3, I can honestly say Flex Builder makes me want to never touch the Flash IDE again, and recommend that no one every mentions the other F-word again.
When you create a class that is referenced in the FLA codehinting should be applied. Having it project-based like in Flex Builder would obviously be even better.
Codehinting should be available for symbols placed on the stage within the scope of the current frame code.
Quirk
More of a feature, I guess, but going with the project idea instead of a single FLA, don’t allow the switching back and forth between AS3 and AS1/AS2 as a dropdown. I don’t understand why this was made part of the metaphor. It must have really complicated matters. If someone chooses a project as an AS3 project, why would they switch to AS1/AS2, or visa-versa? The idea of simply upgrading your FLA sounds appealing of course, but it’s usually not that simple. If you only have graphics or a few frame-based commands then it’s probably fine, but at some point you can’t just switch back and forth because of the differences in ActionScript and the AVMs. Perhaps having a conversion option is more appropriate, effectively doing the same thing, but not implying that it’s as simple as a dropdown, because typically, it’s not.
IMHO, having that ability as a dropdown will significantly limit what features are added in future versions of the IDE, not to mention unnecessarily complicating matters for users, and their managers who think they can simply toggle versions.
BUGS:
1. Custom short-cut keys has been often lost. or assigned to wrong place.
(Especially, When I assigned short-cut key to custom command)
It may be a general annoying flash bug.
QUIRKS:
1. HOME key (Cmd + ? for Mac) would jump to first non-white space character.
and If I push again Home-key, it would jump to the first column.
2. Typing in the Flash IDE code editor is a bit slower than other Cocoa based editor.
(Especially, keyboard response time…)
3. Toggle Line Comment/ Block Comment.
Current line/block comment feature is good, but removing comments makes me crazy.
FEATURES:
1. Word Completion based on words written.
(It is not a code assist, but the just simple word completion.)
Look at the default Text Edit app for Mac OS X
If you press ESC key, editor shows word list based on your writing.
It is very useful to type a long name variable.
2. Short-cut key for Duplicate Line (or Selection) & Delete Line.
It is a simple features. but very effective.
I wish
-Duplicate Line/Selection : Control – J (Cmd – J for Mac)
-Delete Line : Control – D (Cmd – D for Mac)
BUG:
this bit of code:
} else if (speedx< -2.5) {
creates an autoformat error. Have to change it to this:
} else if (speedx< (-2.5)) {
BUG: This code:
} else if (speedx< -2.5) {
creates an autoformat errror. Have to be changed to this:
} else if (speedx< (-2.5)) {
hope this isn’t a 2x post, SUBMIT errored on me just now…
I want to some updation in flash cs4 i.e. underline & bullet feature that is not available till now. when we work on keyframes here is one problem i.e not in flash 8 is keyword selection problem.
FEATURE: A very flexible 3d integration, making possible to use 3ds max, cinema 4d and some features of maya OR a way to convert them in a flash format.
BUG: CS3, Mac & Win all flavors of OS: Color Coding Prefs not obeyed in the debugger.
In the Prefs dialog under actionscript, change the foreground color to white or a light grey and the background color to black. Set a break point and debug your app. You should notice that the code background color is a light grey in the debugger while all other code colors are obeyed. The background color should be the same color set the code color prefs, in this case black.
QUIRK: Show Frame Label or Layer Name on tabs of Pinned Scripts.
QUIRK: Make the Find and Replace window just float on-top and allow the code still editable.
QUIRK: More complete Find and Replace options like “Match whole word only”, “Replace/Find in selection only”, “Ignore white spaces”, “Regular expression match”, “Match beginning of word only”, etc…
FEATURE: Introspection and code hinting for custom functions too.
FEATURE: Vertical selection of code.
FEATURE: Objects hinting, what is inside what, i.e. when i type this._parent. the hinting should also show Instances of MC/Buttons on that level/object. Something like the “insert Target Path” tool.
FEATURE: When double clicking a keyframe with code open the Actions panel and show that frame code.
FEATURE: Keyboard shortcuts.
FEATURE: The ability to save predefined code so we can do something like click in “saved code” > “load xml” > and the editor insets the code we saved with that name where the cursor is. Something like a code library, like the Lee’s snippets panel but within the Code Editor.
FEATURE: A button to collapse all functions. i.e. from this:
funtion foo() {
bla bla bla;
bla bla;
}
to something like this:
function foo(){ bla… }
QUIRK: Toggle Word/Line wrap.
QUIRK: ctrl/alt + click shows that keyword/function help/documentation.
QUIRK: Tooltip to show the variable type, instance type, and maybe variable value.
QUIRK: Code hinting for XML variables after first level. Like this: myXML.firstChild.[code hinting here]
myXML.firstChild.[code hinting here].[and here]
myXML.firstChild.[code hinting here].[and here].[and so on]
FEATURE: Ability to set an external editor as editor of choice for code files.
FEATURE: code inspection for custom classes gets another vote.
FEATURE: better syntax highlighting for code inspection (currently it highlights any function name that is used with an object that doesn’t have that function. e.g. sprite.scrollV -> scrollV is highlighted although it is not a function of sprite).
FEATURE: proper location jumped to for method/properties depending on the object. At the moment if there are several objects that have, for example, the target property, using obj2.target and jumping to help fo rtarget will always go to the obj1.target property help location even if obj1 != obj2. Hope that makes sense.
FEATURE: function/method listing in alphabetical order in another pane so you can find functions more quickly. This should be like eclipse in showing you arguments, returns of a function
FEATURE: remove script assist, or allow the button to be hidden.
FEATURE: hide/show code lines for functions/brace areas (i.e. don’t have to select lines first and then hide, the hide button is right next to the function name.
FEATURE: better integration of editor so that .as files aren’t hidden by the editor window (window is not just inactive but completely invisible).
FEATURE: code inspection/highlighting for stage instances. Inspection should cover all frames of the object.
Code inspection I think is the biggest and most important of all.
Bug:
Write a function with “Void” instead of “void” in an AS3 project.
Click the “Check Syntax” button.
It doesn’t find the mistake.
Obviously if you compile it though the error is found.
If you do a similar thing in an AS2 project the error is found.
FlashDevelopp in CS4 will be a good start.
FEATURE: Compile Errors – ‘Goto source’ button should go to the appropriate line in your editor of choice ie textmate! I would like flash to really try to make it so that other text editors can plug in to flash better, it is about choice and personal control of your projects, the reality is that as a contractor I have to use lots of editors and the better they integrate with the flash ide the better.
Just get FDT. Problem solved.
THE PROJECT MANAGEMENT FEATURES ARE VIRTUALLY NON EXISTENT.
Take a queue from the “flash develop” IDE, If I could have flash’s interface for animation, and “flash develop”‘s project management and code completion features, I would actually buy Flash cs4, instead of sticking with flash develop.
My #1 request for the flash IDE’s text editor is to make it a real native OS window. I’m surprised that more people don’t bring this up or consider it. Make it a window that I can command-tilde to switch to, command-W to close, etc. Make it behave like every other window in my OS.
Most important reason for this feature is that I would prefer an editor that stays visible when leaving the IDE to go to another app. The floating panels used throughout the studio are a huge pain when using multiple apps to build a project – and now with CS3′s “fade in” “fade out” panels its even worse.
An alternative CS4 interim patch would be to have a user preference on whether to hide panels when leaving the app or not.
I know this doesn’t have to do with the code editor specifically – but it sort of fits, since it is pertinent to anyone using the code editor -
To go along with my previous note, It would be incredibly beneficial if the “Help” panel was also a native OS window, that did not disappear when leaving the Flash IDE to another application.
I can duplicate a stage window to two tabs, so I can be in two places at once…
How hard would it be to split a stage window; to be in two places, side-by-side? Same for the Script panel; can we split that, to see two scripts at once.
An evolution of that idea:
The workspace is limited to one instance of any one panel.
Can that restriction be removed?
EG:
Allowing multiple Stage panels looking at different frames; multiple script panels, showing different scripts; Multiple library panels, looking at different folders(or different FLAs); so on, and so forth.
For CS4, as a whole:
Can it ship with synced shortcuts, across the suite?
It’s nice that Adobe honored Macromedia’s hotkeys when they bought the rights; but it mixes me up a bit when flipping from FLA to AI.
..What’s ‘redo’? ctrl+Y, or ctrl+sft+z?
When I place an AI(or PSD) to FLA; can the external file be linked such that when I revise the AI, the FLA auto-updates.
Much like when an AI is placed to an InDesign doc; or the “import Dynamic Link” with After Effects, Encore, and Premiere Pro.
QUIRK:
When control-dragging a block of code to duplicate it, I can drop it to any line except the one line immediately following the selection highlight.
Would CS4 let me put it on that line?
(apologies for my previous, unlabeled posts. They should have been, respectively: FEATURE, QUIRK, FEATURE)
QUIRK: Option to use a set number of spaces for tabbing instead of a tab character. This would make it much easier to move between the IDE and text editors without having to change the tab length. I realize I can set the length of a tab stop in the IDE, but I would prefer to not use tab stops at all, just white space.
QUIRK or FEATURE, you be the judge:
it would be nice if I could double-click an actionscript frame to open the script editor.
The shift+arrowkey selection is really quirky, can we have an option for it work like emacs in pc-selection mode?
Plus the autoformat puts the cursor at the end of all your code — I should be able to autoformat and keep editing from exactly where the cursor was when i hit autoformat.
FEATURE:
This may be one for CS7\AS4…
It would be nice if we could use the E4X “..” (descendants) operator to access child displayObject instances.
FEATURE
When using find and replace, can the F&R window NOT keep me from working with the script window.
Like SEPY’s F&R, that lets me edit on the fly.
FEATURE
Can we get script markers that can be navigated like breakpoints (ie: shortcuts for goto next marker\prev marker that take the cursor directly to specific lines)?
FEATURE: Just rip out the Script Assist feature as it is more confusing than actually doing the code yourself. Make room on the menu bar for something we can actually use.
FEATURE: remove of the Collapse selection in Code Editor.Show all the Code content with simple scrolling.
Bug (or at least very irritating behavior):
When you have multiple AS files open and close one of them, the focus shifts to a random file! It doesn’t seem to be the order they were opened, tab-order, date created, or anything else I can figure out. Whug!
Ideally focus would shift to the tab to the left or to the most recently opened file. An option for handling this behavior would be excellent.
Feature: An toggle for how to handle tabs (spaces vs. tabs) would be great. An additional option for the number of spaces would be even better.
FEATURE:
Option to set the default delimiter in multi-argument trace output (similar to Perl’s $/ special variable). The current output of
trace( “part one”, “part two”, “part three” );
is this:
part one part two part three
But changing the default delimiter to “, ” (for example) would make it much more readable:
part one, part two, part three
or a change to “|” or “–>” would yeild
part one|part two|part three
or
part one–>part two–>part three
QUIRK or FEATURE, you be the judge:
1.)It’s be really cool if was more of the dreamweaver style code editing… Put a component down on the stage and default code appears in “the right spot”… user preferences would toggle the autoCoding, or use user defined code… just a thought
Please GOD will you do as 75. DAN asked: Please bring back the Esc shortcuts in AS3 before we all Freak out……..
BUG: the default compression on PNGs should be lossless not jpg.
BUG: PNGs, jpgs and other art import to the stage has fractional widths that are incorrect (i.e. a 512 wide image has a width of 511.9) and it DOES cause fuzzies (because the image has been resized). This doesn’t always happen, but happens often enough to be annoying.
FEATURE: give more control over the Context Menu (and the application menu) in stand-alone projectors (i.e. an About that can be configured to be about the application built and not Flash Player) Note: AIR is not a solution because it’s full of bugs and other bogus assumptions.
QUIRK: Currently I can apply a hot-key to (e.g.) auto-comment a block of code via the “Actions Panel Commands” (Edit->Keyboard Shortcuts, then select “Actions Panel Commands” under “Commands”), however I cannot create a hot-key to do this for .as code as it displays in a different “panel” than the Actions Panel (even though both panels have the icon and can clearly perform the auto-comment feature).
…and can I say, trying to figure out that I can’t just do a keyboard shortcut to apply the comments was a PAIN
The only thing you should do to the Flash editor is make it more appealing to designers, not developers. They’re the only people who would ever use it, after all. Chances are, the majority of those people don’t even know who you are, much less read your blog or Adobe Feeds, or even know they exist. So, any comments you get here wouldn’t really speak to their needs.
If you really want to know how to improve it to help the people who actually use it, visit a bunch of boutique agencies who specialize in banner ads, movie websites etc. The majority of people working there are designers who hack actionscript on the timeline and who don’t write classes and don’t use 3rd party tools. They are your target audience.
Because of the fantastic alternatives out there (FlashDevelop, FDT, Flex Builder, TextMate, etc.) which Adobe could not possibly hope to match with the Flash editor, no developer would ever use the Flash IDE editor no matter what you did to improve it, so any time or effort spent appealing to that demographic would be a waste.
To be pragmatic, if you want to improve the Flash editor, you should integrate it with the mxmlc compiler to have better auto-completion and code hints. That’s probably about as much improvement as you could provide and have it be worth the effort. Beyond that, it’s a losing proposition.
I agree with “M.B.’s” comments on April 20th, 2008…
“An alternative CS4 interim patch would be to have a user preference on whether to hide panels when leaving the app or not.”
I found your blog because I am looking for a way to stop the panels from auto hiding when I switch between Flash and Dreamweaver or other apps like demos and tutorials.
The ‘cannot reference the property of a null reference variable’ error message would be very useful if it pointed to the null reference variable. I’m guilty of committing this error countless times and always end up having to test a few times to pinpoint the variable.
BUG: when autoformatting conditional XML statements, it removes my parenthesis. ie. myXML.node1.(@id == “1″); gets turned into this –> myXML.node1.@id == 1; which of course gets a compile error.
BUG: When coding in AS2 it shouldn’t hint AS3 and vice versa, also when I right-click>view help on an AS2 word it usually opens up a “No results found” page. BOOO!
TWEAK: Please PLEASE, don’t have my collapsed code unfold if I autoformat!!! I am constantly autoformatting to clean up my code, and it makes the code collapse feature basically useless.
I’m new to flash, coming from a .NET development environment with amazing tools such as ReSharper for making quick transformations to code.
ActionScript seems to be a dynamically typed language so a lot of those refactoring capabilities are complicated.
I do, however, think the basic text editor in Flash CS3 sucks pretty badly. I’ve spent long enough with it now to overcome any learning curve. There are just loads of things missing.
For example, if I want to move one or more lines of text around. Press HOME to get to the beginning of the line. Hold SHIFT and press UP or DOWN and suddenly a bunch of extra whitespace is selected. Cutting and pasting that then causes this clipboard whitespace to mess up the indentation of adjacent lines (at best!). One shortcut in Visual Studio that is really great is the ability to CTRL+X/C/V to cut/copy/paste the active line whenever no text is selected. This just takes the line under the cursor. Best of all, if you copy this way, then paste somewhere else (with the cursor in the middle of a line) then the clipboard’s line is appended at the beginning of the line.
Also, how about an option to run autoformat after pasting?
And: CTRL+ALT+Up/Down to move the active line of text up/down in the document one line at a time.
One thing that really bothers is that the old Microsoft CTRL+INS, SHIFT+DEL, SHIFT+INS (copy, cut, and paste) shortcuts do not work in the Flash editor. These are standard (if outdated) shortcuts that I consistently try to use through habit in the IDE, but if I try to cut text with SHIFT+DEL, the text is just deleted. Even Firefox supports these shortcuts.
FEATURE – I wish the documentation had an easier way to find examples. The old AS2 version was chock full of simple examples and thorough documentation to get you started. AS3… you are stuck with a few sentences and a lot of Google searching till you find what you need.
BUG: The Autoformatting goes haywire when using the word ‘static’ as part of the name of a funciton.
The Problem: A semicolon gets added to the end of the line with the opening function brace { .. More importantly the indent spacing for the rest of the code is moved to the left.
EXAMPLE:
private function blahstaticblah() {
//statements
}
private function nextFunctions() {
}
turns into:
private function blahstaticblah() {;
//statements
}
private function nextFunctions() {
}
The Auto Format needs a key press assigned to it, and it needs to be faster, on long 2000 line code it can take a good few seconds just to tidy up my code
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Navigating long code is a nightmare, you need a drop down of navigator for all the functions so you can see all the functions and jump straight to it, I prefer to code in one long list than separate frames for several reasons.
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Find and replace is slow also
And its annoying having to show a dialog when no results are found, along with when you do find again with command-g, it should just beep when no results exists, dialogs are annoying, same goes for the Syntax checker that presents “this script contains no errors”
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Be nice to have it auto finish typing/suggest for your own function and variable names in some unobtrusive way
Typing variable and function names all the time is a killer i end up calling everything 2 characters long names to make it quicker, and then i cant tell what anything is!
OSX has a interesting built in thing thats sytem wide, so say in TextEdit as your typing you can press alt-Esc it then displays a list of words it could be, and it learns so if you type the same first few letters again its first suggestion will be a word you last selected/typed earlier in the document even if its a made up word !!
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Be nice to have a button (with a keypress) that hides and shows ALL comments
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Syntax Check/AutoFormat and additonal things like hide all comments, should have a place in the Menubar also, so they can be access from the menu, its standard app practice, it allows them to be found by Apples Help search and the user can change or add a keypress to the menu item using Apples System Preferences, basically every app function should be in the menu somewhere.
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Badly needs a way to help find what function/if statement your inside currently, say you have a long long list of things all nestled at different tab indents, and you have an ending curly brace your trying to work out where the beginning one belongs to,
as a side note ive seen editors that as you type the any brackets like (){}[] it flashes in RED the associated ending/beginning tag so you can see where it belongs to and you know you have closed them all properly, also if you type an invalid thing like: ( something ( something else }
It beeps audible letting you know you’ve typed a ending bracket that has no beginning bracket
Maybe have it change the color of the beginning and ending brackets of the surrounding code wherever your cursor is, so as your typing its highlighted the ending and beginning brackets , it could use a different color if the bracket is missing or incomplete with some realtime simple syntax checking
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Should have a separate color for boolean values, i thin they should be colored the same as strings
Needs separate color for functions too so you can see where your calling any functions
The color pick to chnage the color formatting to syntax is crap, its limited palette, it needs to be like all the other color pickers in flash and support the built in OS’s color wheel/eye dropper to and/or to type in the HEX value
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in MAc apps press Ctrl-Arrow Left-Right, moves the cursor insertion point to the beggining and end of line respectively, also pressing Ctrl-Shift-Left Arrow, would select from your current position to the beggining of the line making it easy to quickly delete or copy lines of text as , your typing, theres a good few others like Alt-Up arrow jumps to the begging of the current paragraph of text,
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Be helpful to have a way to quickly see what places a variable or function is being use, or say jump directly from a function call to where the function is defined even if its defined on another frame.
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Be great if you could edit code as it runs, its supposed to be a JIT compiler now right? so does that mean thats possible? or the opposite
Often im just tweaking variables and code over and over but it has to republish/compress all the movieclips and images and fonts each time, fonts can sometimes take ages, so if it caches that as i havnt made any changes to it, that would be great
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Too many times im getting errors in the output and it wont tell me the line number its on or it tells me the wrong line number
Oh one more I keep thinking of more
when you type a variable for the first time it should be a different color letting you know you hav not used it before
So you dont accidently use a variable you have already used for something else
This wont effect people who define variables first, but i refuse to use Strict Mode or define variables as it makes my code longer and harder to write for little benefit other than being penalized in some cases and still allowing me to do stupid coding practices without error
BUG: Somehow the Actions panel manages to get to be taller than my screen after hiding/showing via F9 repeatedly, or maybe it happens on starting Flash, I’m not sure. Whatever the case, it’s troublesome because you can’t resize panels by clicking the top of them like you could in CS3 (this bug existed in CS3 too, not in 8 as far as I can remember) and the only way to get the panel to fit on my screen again is to dock it in a panel column, collapse the column to icons, then pop out the Actions panel, then I can resize by clicking the top, then I tear it off.
BUG? QUICK? REMOVED-FEATURE? The Esc shortcuts don’t work for me in an AS3 document. They work in AS2. I used the Esc shortcuts all the time in AS2 and really miss them.
@greg – “One thing that really bothers is that the old Microsoft CTRL+INS, SHIFT+DEL, SHIFT+INS (copy, cut, and paste) shortcuts do not work in the Flash editor.”
Right on! SHIFT+DEL not working like it does in every other product on every other platform is driving me nuts in CS4. If flash weren’t closed source I’d already have fixed this, as it stands I’m using CTRL+Z more than anything else! Grr :/
It appears that some virus scanners (in my case the McAfee on access scanner) can kill the performance of scrolling and selecting text on Vista in the text editor. A quick look with a profiler tells me that for some reason Flash.exe does lots of registry access every time you scroll or select text.
My advice is to gibe hoping that coding hints will be much help. When it comes to the crunch you are on your own. I say this with mote in sadness than anger.