FDT 3 Actionscript Editor – Blog

This month, we thought about a very special deal: if you are using any other IDE than FDT as your Flash/Flex development environment, you now have the opportunity to upgrade to FDT Professional or FDT Enterprise for the special price of $299 and $399 respectively. Just send us an email to upgrade2FDT@powerflasher.com with some proof of purchase that shows you are using a competing product, for instance a copy of your invoice, and we will send you the instructions for the order form. Don’t miss the opportunity; switch to FDT now and save money! This offer is only valid for the month of March!

“I was surprised of how dynamic and comfortable all the coding turned out to be with FDT”

Q: Can you tell us a little bit about yourself and some of the work you’re currently doing?

I’m Gabriel Peart, I live in Sao Paulo-Brazil. I have more than 10 years experience working as a programmer, 6 years working with Action Script. Right now I’m working as freelancer for some companies around the world. Freelancing is interesting because you can choose the projects you want to work on, manage time to study, improve as a professional and work with a couple of different teams in the same time.
The project I’m working on right now is a very interesting APP for Facebook, which will be released soon. I’m also very glad to be FDT Evangelist, really honored to be part of this team.

Q: What brought you to discover FDT?

I was looking for something to help me optimize the time I spend on my projects, in a very organized and efficient way of course. I made a few tests and choose FDT, I was surprised of how dynamic and comfortable all the coding turned out to be.

Q: What are some of the features in FDT 3.5 that excite you the most?

All the features are excellent and very useful, but I can’t live without the Refactoring and Debugger ones. And also now, the new Profiler.

Q: As you are discovering FDT, are you coming across any unique challenges?

Once I was working in this big project, the coding was complex and evolved a large number of classes. And as usual, it had a very short deadline. Trying to do things faster, I started to develop a lot of things as soon as possible. But just a couple of days from de deadline, the company sent me new names and details for all the classes/functions/variables. I thought I was going to have a lot of work changing all the name in several files. This is when I started to use FDT and found out the Refactoring feature. That is how I was able to solve the problem in a few minutes. It kind of save my life in that day.

Q: Does FDT facilitate better interaction between development and design teams?

It sure does. For me, as a programmer, it helps a lot because I only need to think about my coding, don’t even need to open the Flash IDE. Once the design team sends me their part, I can work everything out by just using SWC files and FDT.

Q: What are the projects you liked to work on the most?

There are many, some of them are: 24\7,working with several 3D effects; Renault Xmas Card 2009, I made a system where the users could log on and create and print their own Christmas card, it was cool because in this project I made some experiences using the user’s webcam to capture their image, interacting them with elements like snow, gifts, hats and putting everything in the card.

Q: How was it to participate at the Flash Camp Brasil event?

It was an amazing moment, where I was able to represent the FDT team and talk about all the things FDT could offer to those whose who enjoy a quality coding, everyone was there sharing experience and realizing how FDT can make their lives easier. Demian Borba did an excellent job and It’s my pleasure to collaborate for such a unforgettable event. I got to know many people and made a lot of great friends interested in the same things that I do. I am definitely ready for the Flash Camp Brasil 2011.

Q: What are you doing when you are not coding?

I enjoy looking for new stuff I can use for my projects all the time, see what new in the area, but besides that I also have fun playing poker, watching movies and my favorite TV shows (Lost, 24, Numb3rs, Heroes, etc.), reading books (not only about AS3, but philosophy, meditation, etc.), I’m a very common guy.

A well-attended FDT booth, a FDT session with a lot of great news and a FDT Pure license for every attandee.

FDT at FITC Amsterdam was a thorough success! A lot of people stopped by at our nice booth where we demonstrated FDT especially the new features of FDT 4 Milestone 1. Attendees could test those features like the new Profiler in the FDT test center. There was a FDT card in every goody bag the people could fill out. Everyone who dropped this card at our booth got a free FDT Pure license.

I also had the chance to give a FDT presentation, my debut at a FITC conference. Beside a speed coding demo I demonstrated the improvements of FDT 3.5 and the roadmap as well as the new features of FDT 4 Milestone 1: the Profiler and the Welcome Screen. Slides of the talk can be downloaded here.

I also uploaded some pictures to Flickr.

Have fun,
Michael

No, this is not a typo. Shortly after the great and successful release of FDT 3.5 we want to present our next major development step of FDT: FDT 4 “Milestone 1″! We are very excited about this release, this is going to be the best FDT release in history! Read the rest of this entry »

I’ve just tried to compile my first project targeting Flash Player 10.1 with the latest FDT version 3.5.
It’s very simple to set it up, I’ve done it in about 10 minutes so here’s a quick tutorial on how to get started with 10.1 beta 2.

The summary first:

1. Download a fresh new Flex SDK
2. Patch the playerglobal.swc with the new one
3. Add the new SDK to FDT

In depth:

1. Download and install Flash Player 10.1 beta 2
2. Download a new Flex SDK from here, I’ve chosen the latest 3.4 stable build
3. Download the new core library (playerglobal.swc) for FP 10.1 here
4. Now replace the old playerglobal.swc located here in your downloaded Flex SDK: /frameworks/libs/player/10/playerglobal.swc with the new downloaded FP 10.1 playerglobal.swc
5. In FDT 3.5 go to Preferences>FDT>Core Libraries>AS3 Core Libraries and click “Add…”
6. As “Type” use “Flex 3 SDK for FP 10″ give it a name and click the “Browse” and then “New” button to add your new patched Flex SDK.

That’s all for setting everything up. Now create a new Flash Project:

1. New > New Flash Project
2. In the SDK drop down menu choose the one you’ve added earlier.
3. Create a Main class and derive it from Sprite
4. In the constructor I’ve added this line of code to check if everything is working: trace(Acceleromter.isSupported);
5. Right click your Main class and Debug it as AS3 Application

Everything should compile properly now and you should see the trace output (”false” on my MacBook Pro… hmm… is that correct? Every MBP has an integrated accelerometer. Weird isn’t it? Who has an answer?). Additionally you can add the -target-player=10.1.0 compiler argument to your launch configuration.

Happy 10.1 coding everybody,
Michael

Since the well received release of FDT 3.5, we have been preparing to spread the word about our great product globally. The time has come!

You can meet us at the FDT booth at  FITC Amsterdam in February and at the FITC Toronto in April, Flash And The City New York in May.

We will have an exhibition and tutorial at the FFK Flash Forum Konferenz in May in Cologne.

Be sure to watch for more events in the coming months scheduled in San Francisco, Brazil, Japan and Los Angeles.

This is a great opportunity to get the latest news about FDT 3.5 directly from the FDT team and to find out more about what to expect in FDT in the future!

That’s not all!
Purchase a ticket to one of the mentioned flash events and come to visit our booth to receive a free FDT Pure license!

Here we go, FDT version 3.5 is out now! After two beta phases and a lot of  feedback and support from the FDT community we have just released the free update to FDT 3.5.

This is a great leap forward  especially for Flex developers. You can now use the advanced Autocompletion features that you might know from the FDT ActionScript Editor in your MXML files also. Auto complete MXML tags, functions, events, AS code or use the code templates to insert MXML and AS code very quickly. Make use of the great refactoring and search features also in your Flex files now.

We have also added a lot new Features to the AS Editor like Event Type Autocompletion, improved Quick Outline, inline XML and a completely rewritten Debugger with new features.

Definitely check out the FDT 3.5 release video where I demonstrate some of the major new improvements. Here is a list of all the features introduced in this update.

This update is free for every FDT 3 user, so simply go to the download page or use the update site to update your copy of FDT now.

Happy coding everybody,
Michael

One more reason to be @FlashCampBrasil !

We are proud to announce a FDT Workshop with Gabriel Peart for this event.

Getting started with FDT, configurations, unique features, tips, tricks and there will be lots of surprises for you: t-shirts, free license, discounts …

The workshop will be January 16, the Flash Camp Brazil in the beautiful city of Maceió, Brazil.

This is definitely a Flash event to not be missed!

Time is running out, hurry up and register !

Firstly, we wish you all a happy new year! And to have something good to begin the new year with, I’m already bringing great news on this very first day of 2010. There will be a major event at the University of Hawaii, which will be broadcasted online thanks to John Barrett and the Hawaii Flash User Group

Date and Time: January 6, 2010 from 6:00pm – 7:00pm Hawaii Time Zone. If you don’t live in hawaii, please check the time in your area http://www.timezonecheck.com

Michael will be presenting FDT not only to the eager community of Hawaii but in fact to the whole world via webcast.

John explained, “this is not a meeting to miss!” – showing that he is just as excited as we are. Taking every chance to show our appreciation, there will some special surprises at the end of the meeting!

Check out the event details here and follow the presentation online: http://experts.na3.acrobat.com/fdt

Again, Happy New Year!

And the winners are…

We’re happy to announce that Billy White won the FDT raffle on this years TexFlex. Welcome aboard, feel free to share your thoughts with us