Code Cook

Setting up an AS2 Development Environment in Eclipse

After SEPY crashed on me 4 times in a row, I decided to try my hand at setting up an AS2 development environment in Eclipse.

Here is a list of things that I love in SEPY, that I needed to have in Eclipse to make the transition acceptable:

• Snippets: I’ve been getting used to using templates, but so far so good
• Publish/Test Movie from Eclipse (ctrl+enter or the like)
• Duplicate line

Here is what I’ve done to get the AS2 environment set up:

1. Grab Eclipse (As of right now I’m still using 3.1)
2. Install ASDT (AS Development Tool)
3. Grab Mike Chambers FlashCommand (A command line tool for compiling fla’s)
   1. Add the build.xml ANT build file for FlashComamnd and set the parameters (Check out the detailed post to set up your build.xml file)
4. Create your own templates for the ActionScript perspective or download and import mine
   1. Download AS2 snippets
   2. Importing Downloaded Snippets:
      1. From the main menu in eclipse select ‘Window’ -> ‘Preferences’
      2. Expand the ‘ActionScript2′ node
      3. Expand the ‘Editor’ node
      4. Select ‘Templates’
      5. Click the ‘Import’ button
      6. Browse to the file then click ‘Open’

Here is a list of things that I wish were available in Eclipse but sadly are not yet:

• Select text -> drag and drop (copy/move) - This is in CFEclipse, but not ASTD or even the FlexBuilder plugin

Abbreviations (templates help with this one) – Huge timesaving feature in SEPY.

Posted in configuration |

Using FlashCommand in Eclipse

Recently I pulled down Mike Chambers FlashCommand. FlashCommand is a command line compiler for the Flash IDE.

I wanted to set up an ANT build script to execute builds from Eclipse without having to alt-tab between programs (yes, I'm that lazy!).

Setting up the ANT script wasn't too difficult, even for someone who knew the absolute minimum about ANT.

[Download the sample build script.]

Posted in configuration |

FB’s Incremental Compiler, Eclipse and ANT

If you're using ANT inside Flex Builder 2 to compile your Flex 2/AS3 application you've probably noticed that invoking mxmlc from inside ANT is not as fast as running the integrated compiler.

Dirk Eismann has a nice post about using ANT in Eclipse.

Posted in actionscript, ant, flash, flex |