FlashDevelop 2.0, First Impressions
It always takes me a while to wrangle up enough energy to try out a new IDE. There’s a lot of inertia there… I build up habits, and muscle memory as it were, as I get used to a certain way of doing things. So, following the recommendations of my respected colleagues, I decided to give FlashDevelop a spin.
At first, I was a little confused as to the best way to bring my existing project in. It has a Wizard, but, as I’m not as up to speed on the proper Actionscript 2.0 way to set up projects as most, so I wasn’t quite sure which template to choose. I chose ‘Empty Project’, and then chose the directory of my existing project.
FlashDevelop brought my project in, and, loading my base class, the first thing I noticed was the class browser. It’s very nice to be able to have short-cuts to your methods and properties rather than the scroll and hunt method I’m used to. I just need to each myself to use it more often.
The first thing I always do when I start with a new editor is ask it, “What can you do for me?” So, I started by typing in known method names. The code-hinting is very slick. The only thing I didn’t like is that it seems to be more strict than SciTE ASCS. You need to explicitly state ‘this’ in order to get code hinting to work within the current class. SciTE was pretty carte-blanche about code completion. It will complete everything, everywhere. You can use completion if you mention method names in comments, and it will autocomplete even without expressly stating ‘this’, and autocomplete any word in your document. I got used to that, and it was kind of nice. However, because of this, SciTE will slow down if your document gets very long.
Looking back, I think that FlashDevelop’s way is probably better, as it forces you to code properly. That strict autocompletion, along with the built-in MTASC compiler will really help you shape up your AS 2.0 code. Hitting ‘F7′ in your base class will do a syntax-check on your class and any classes instanced within it. If MTASC runs into an error, FD will take you right to the line-number and highight the problem.
I had some methods that contained functions within them, and Flash 8 had no problem with it, but MTASC yelled at me because I used ‘function foo’ instead of var foo:Function = function’. That’s a good thing. I do, wish, though, that autocomplete worked inside comments. Or, perhaps there’s a way within FD to automatically build JavaDoc-like commenting for each method, and I have yet to discover it.
I think that FlashDevelop has the potential to be a viable Flash IDE alternative. I’ve never created a project that didn’t need some level of custom graphics and timeline integration, but it’s possible to create code-only projects within FD. Some day, they may even be able to integrate a built-in player open-source player like Gnash.
With such smooth IDEs like FlashDevelop, with good syntax-highlighting, documentation integration, syntax checking, and verbose error reporting from MTASC, it’s hard NOT to become a good AS 2.0 coder. Tools like this make it easier to learn a language. I just wish they had something like this for Ruby on Rails!
P.S. I’m adding my vote for a Mac OS X version, too!
