If you use a PC and want to code AS3, you can choose between Flex Builder 2, which rocks, but costs, and FlashDevelop with its new AS3 support and my AS3 project templates or the FlashBuild plugin, which rocks almost as much as FB2, but is free.
But if you are on a Mac, you really have to roll your own environment. Steve Nelson, a fellow Bostonian and active member of BFPUG, has taken my FlashDevelop project templates and tweaked them to nicely on a Mac. As the templates were Ant-based and used the command line compiler, they weren’t heavily platform-dependent to begin with, but Steve did the extra work of removing the FlashDevelop specific stuff and whatever other tweaks were needed to get it running on OS X. So here’s the updated OS X AS3 template:
http://www.bit-101.com/flashdevelop/OSX_ProjectTemplate.zip
Note that I have not actually used this myself, and it hasn’t been heavily tested, but I know a lot of people are successfully using the pc versions, and I trust Steve did a good job converting it, so you should be good to go, or pretty much so.
or you can use the flash 9 beta…
Have no fear, Eclipse FlexBuilder for the Mac will soon be here. 🙂
Burno, yeah, you can use the Flash 9 beta for AS3 projects, but not Flex 2. And it doesn’t fit into a development environment as nicely as a command line compiler.
Rich, yes it will, I saw Mike Chambers using it at FiTC! (though it did crash once 🙂 ) Even then, though, it’s nice to have a free alternative.
Oh don’t get me started about the Flex Builder for Mac… I was there with Keith watching Mike Chambers work with it on his Mac with pure envy. Let’s hope they release that sucker soon. Keith thanks for letting us know about these Ant scripts. The thing is that there is no good AS3 editor for Mac at the moment, and I’m so spoiled by FDT and the JDT in Eclipse that I can’t imagine using a simple text editor at this point in time, even with these handy ant Scripts. Hopefully Flex Builder for Mac will come out in time for my upcoming project where we are going to be using the Flex 2 framework. Please Adobe, please, don’t make me fire up Windows just to use Flex. At least give us a public Beta so that we can help you guys perfect it sooner.
Yeah, I should clarify that the templates are only for building as3/flex2 with the command line compiler and ant. There’s no code completion or direct editor integration going on in there. This might help though:
http://weblogs.macromedia.com/flexteam/archives/2006/10/flex_support_fo.cfm
I don’t code on a mac, so I haven’t looked into any of these, but might be useful.
I came up with a solution for Mac Dreamweaver users awhile back… Some folks have found it helpful, so I thought I’d mention it.
http://tom-lee.blogspot.com/2006/07/mac-flexweaver-edit-compile-flex-apps.html
It doesn’t have a lot of the useful features that other solutions have, but it’s nice for the basic edit-compile-preview workflow.
I agree with Chris about the current lack of a great Flex/AS3 editor for Macintosh but at the moment my needs are pretty modest and are met reasonably well with Keith’s great buildfile and template structure. One thing that makes life a tiny bit easier is Marc Liyanage’s “Open Terminal Here” AppleScript:
http://www.entropy.ch/software/applescript/welcome.html
It puts a neat little icon in your finder window. Open the folder your app is in, click the icon and Terminal opens with that path already in place. No more “cd” – just type “ant” and return to compile your code. Helps simple minds like mine a lot.
Flex builder 2 for mac, Check it http://labs.adobe.com/technologies/flexbuilder2/
Hi i wrote a flashdevelop like app for mac.
I´ve anyone want to use it i could publish it.
It´s only mac, very alpha, testet @ 10.4 OSX in the moment.
Hello Ray,
where can I get a copy of your Tool.
regards,
patrick[at]twoto.com