SciTE for Actionscript on OS X?
If you are a Flash developer who recently made the switch to OS X like I have, you may be missing some of the great Open Source Flash development tools out there. I’ve always been partial to SciTE, specifically SciTE|Flash, because it is light, simple, and has some nice features. I recently found a port of SciTE for Mac OS X. It doesn’t have the Flash extras, but it does have basic Actionscript syntax highlighting. With a few tweaks, you can make it work just like SciTE|Flash.
Make sure you follow the instructions for installing SciTE. It runs under the X11 X windows platform, which comes on your OS X install discs. Once you’ve installed both, launch X11, and add a shortcut to SciTE on the Applications Menu by clicking “Customize Menu”. SciTE lives in /usr/local/bin/. <disclaimer>By the way, my system is fine… but do all of this at your own risk!</disclaimer>
I decided to try to add more Actionscript features by copying the properties files and API files from SciTE::ASCS.
I just backed up my entire /usr/local/share/scite/ folder, and copied all of the ASCS files into there. It works pretty well. Syntax highlighting worked, and with a few tweaks, I got code hinting to work as well. I haven’t gotten MTASC to work right, yet. I calls the program, but doesn’t send any parameters. Also, none of the tools in the tools menu work. They just crash SciTE. Interesting that, since the Global properties for ASCS use Bitstream Vers Sans, SciTE started using it. Odd though, I thought hat X11 doesn’t use the OS X system fonts. Oh well, if it works, don’t question it!
It comes with something called LUA, which requires a Mac version of the software to run. I’m not sure what it is or does, but I have a feeling it is why SciTE crashes when I try to use the tools. If anyone has any luck getting any of the other features working, let me know!
As an aside, I really like the SE|PY Actionscript Editor. Unfortunately, it’s a little buggy on OS X. I hope that development for OS X continues.
