Some of you might already have seen this on our Newsletter (send us an email to subscribe): something that we really like to introduce to you is the symbiosis of FDT and Zinc.

Zinc Builder is a powerful tool for using your existing AS3 and MXML skills to create desktop (and kiosk) applications.

FDT 5 and Zinc 4.0 in fact perfectly match together. We created a thorough tutorial on how to profit from the beautiful team play. For more information, also check out this collection of useful links. Those of you who have tried an earlier version of Zinc before should definitely give it another try. The symbiosis with FDT 5 is truly worth another shot.

Continuing the series of featured video tutorials in order to make you familiar with our FDT video site, this time we want to recommend you the tutorial on Source Attachment for SWCs.

The whole elaborate tutorial can be found in the docs. Make sure to check the video site for more tutorials; we work hard to provide you an intense tutorial experience!

Developing mobile applications without being able to debug them can be a pain. Sometimes a good logger like SOSmax can do the job, but its also possible to use FDT’s debugger to debug your applications live on the device.

The only tweak that is needed is to add an additonal parameter when packaging your Android, Playbook or iOS application.

-connect "your computers ip"

Before the app starts up on the device, simply start the FDT debugger so it can listen for a connection to your device.

<fdt.startDebugger switchperspectiveonbreakpoint="true" projectname="Projectname"/>

When the application has launched it will connect to the debugger and you will be able to step through breakpoints and see traces in the console.

If there are any problems make sure your pc and device are part of the same network and your application was packaged in debug mode, means with one of the following arguments:

• -target ipa-debug (iOS)
• -target apk-debug (Android)
• -devMode (BlackBerry Playbook)

Have fun.

We are happy to announce the FDT haXe Beta plug-in as a public release as part of our contribution to the Flash Community Open Source program.

Developed in collaboration with Influxis, the FDT haXe plugin provides developers a powerful tool for authoring the haXe multi-platform language. Our goal is to provide the best haXe coding experience and that it feels like coding in the AS3 or MXML editor of FDT: same shortcuts, same syntax coloring, same coding comfort.

Here’s a feature overview:

• Live error checking
• Autocompletion (variables and functions)
• Syntax coloring
• Code editing features
• Open Type
• New Class/Interface/Enum wizards
• HaXe Project Wizard

Here are additional built-in new features of the haXe plugin.

• Setup an SWF output in your HXML. When it builds, right click on the SWF and select Run As > SWF File.
• Setup a JS output. Right click on the generated JS file and select Run As > JavaScript in browser or Run As > Node.JS server (NB: needs Node.JS installed, and the project needs to include the haxe/node library from bdog-node on github).
• Compile haxe to C++. Right click on the generated executable and select Run As > Native Executable (you have to do “haxelib setup ; haxelib install hxcpp” for this to work).
• Compile to Neko. Right click on the generated neko file and select Run As > Neko VM

More information on the FDT Documentation website.

Some of you might be wondering … What is haXe ?

haXe is an independent multiplatform open source programming language. haXe can publish the same project to Flash, Javascript, PHP, C++, Neko, and in the future it will support more tagets such as Java and C#. haXe helps to leverage the best performance and best features for each platform.

Writing code in haXe is similar to writing Actionscript. Additionally, you could write an application or game that targets Javascript and HTML5 Canvas, or you could leverage server side targets like PHP or Neko so that you can share your classes on both the front-end and back-end. Thanks to haXe you can create an application that runs, for example, on Facebook and runs on an iPad or TouchPad.

The haXe code is MIT licensed, there are no licensing fees or limitations. Most importnat, haXe has a passionate open-source community behind, very willing to help and support developers.

You can find more information on haXe.org

So… what are you waiting for?

Install FDT’s haXe Plugin, just follow the instructions on our haXe FDT Installation tutorial.

More haXe news will be published soon, stay tuned! Follow @FDThaXe to keep up to date on latest development.

Happy Coding from the FDT and Influxis Team!

P.S. Big kudos to Powerflasher’s design team creating haXe new logo! Let us know how you like it.

The community has been screaming for haXe support in FDT. We are thrilled today to announce the public alpha release of the FDT haXe plugin!

Developed in collaboration with Powerflasher and Influxis, the FDT haXe plugin provides developers a powerful tool for authoring the haXe multi-platform language. Our goal is to provide the best haXe coding experience and that it feels like coding in the AS2, AS3 or MXML editor of FDT: same shortcuts, same syntax coloring, same coding comfort.

Here’s a feature overview of the public alpha version:

• Live error checking
• Autocompletion (variables and functions)
• Syntax coloring
• Code editing features
• Open Type
• New Class/Interface/Enum wizards

You can follow our development progress on Twitter @FDThaXe

Watch the first live demo of the FDT haXe plugin I showed at Flash Camp Manchester in the recording from Adrian Parr starting at minute 38 here.

Getting started with the FDT haXe plugin (alpha version)

Installation

1. Download the latest version of FDT4 Beta release here
2. Go to http://haxe.org/download and download the installer for your OS.
   
3. Run the installer.
4. Start up FDT 4 and select Help > Install new Software
5. Select the “FDT Plugins Site” update site. (If it is not included in your drop down menu, enter: http://fdt.powerflasher.com/plugins in the “Work with” text input and hit return)
   
6. Select “FDT haXe Plugin” from the plugin list, hit finish and follow the final installation steps.
   

Setting up the haXe Plugin

1. First of all you need to configure the haXe SDK: Go to Preferences > haXe SDK and insert the haXe installation directory
   
2. Now create a new “Empty AS3 Project”, name it “Hello haXe” and click Finish
   
3. Right click the src folder and select New > HaXe Class (if you don’t see it select Window > Reset Perspective from the Menu)
   
4. Call the new Class “HelloHaxe” and click Finish
5. Right click the Project and select “Add HaXe Project Nature”
   
6. Click Next and set the Type to “Flash9 SWF”, the output file to “bin/HelloHaxe.swf” and the Main Class to “HelloHaxe”
   
7. Extend Sprite and add the constructor and the static main function. The final class should look like this:
   

That’s it, you’ve successfully set up your first FDT haXe Flash project!

Start Coding

Start adding code in the constructor for example:

Please note, the SWF is compiled on every Save, no specific launch configuration is available yet. This is our first Alpha release, please bare with us !

For any feedback, feature requests, improvements, bugs and other issues we encourage you to use our community driven tracking website to make the haXe support in FDT the greatest ever.

We would also advice to subscribe to the haXe mailing list, it is a very active group with smart people and interesting topics.

On the behalf of the FDT Team and Influxis, I hope you are as excited as we are and enjoy the first available version of the FDT haXe plugin,

Michael Plank

This is a short tutorial on how to use the FDT HTML Template to automatically generate the HTML wrapper files for your Flash and Flex projects.

Just download this ZIP file and watch the video tutorial:

Have fun,
Michael

Using shortcuts in FDT is one of the most important techniques to increase your coding efficiency. But learning shortcuts by studiying long lists of keyboard combinations is hard and no fun.

Because of that I thought of posting a shortcut every day on Twitter to give you the chance to add one shortcut after each other to your repertoire.

My Twitter name: @Michael_Plank
You can search for: DoYouKnowThatShortcut
Hashtag: #fdtshortcuts

If you’ve missed one shortcut, no problem! Everytime I post a new shortcut I will add it to the list so you can catch up if you’ve been lazy for one day.
Take the chance to learn all the cool shortcuts that will make it possible to work completely without the mouse 🙂

Have fun with this series,
Michael

Twitter name: @Michael_Plank
Twitter search: DoYouKnowThatShortcut
Twitter hash tag: #fdtshortcuts
RSS: #fdtshortcuts

Hi folks,

very short post, just an info of a very nice tutorial by hexagonstar of how to get a quick and lightweight installation of Eclipse with FDT running.

I find it very useful, so thought sharing it with you here:

cheers,

frank

We’ve recently released a beta update of FDT (v. 3.1.1. Build 1017) which fully supports Flash Player 10 projects and the new Vector.<Type> Syntax.

Here are the few steps you need to follow, in order to create Flash Player 10 content.

Installation

Requirements: installed Version of FDT 3.1

1. Install the beta update:

• Help > Software Updates > Find and Install > Search for new Features to install > new Remote Site > URL: http://fdt.powerflasher.com/update_beta/

2. Download Flex SDK 3.2 or Flex SDK 4

3. Add the downloaded SDK to your List of Core Libraries

• Window > Preferences > FDT > Core Libraries > AS3 Core Libraries
• Click Add…
• Type: Pure AS3 (Flex3) for FP 10, Name: AS3_FP10_beta
• Click “Browse”
• Click “New”
• Name: FlexSDK_FP10_beta
• Click “Folder” and select the downloaded and decompressed Flex SDK folder.
• Click “OK” three times.

4. Install Flash Player 10

Project Setup and Compilation

1. Create a new Flash Project in FDT and select AS3_FP10_beta in the Project Language section.
2. Create a new Class and derive it from Sprite
3. Insert the following line of Code to use the new Vector Class:
   var v : Vector.<int> = new Vector.<int>();
4. Right click the Class and go to Run as > FDT AS3 Application

If you have used the Flex SDK 4, everything should work fine.

If you have used the Flex SDK 3.2 you will get a Compile Error. This is because the Flex SDK 3.2 compiles SWFs for Flash Player 9 by default.
If you take a look at the flex config file:
flex_sdk_3.2.0.3794/frameworks/flex-config.xml you can see, that it uses Flash Player 9 as target player <target-player>9.0.124</target-player>.

In order to compile for Flash Player 10 with SDK 3.2 you need to add the following compiler argument in your launch configuration: -target-player=10.0.0

The flex-config.xml of the Flex SDK 4 uses Flash Player 10 as target player, so you don’t have to add this compiler argument.

Vector Code Template

Try to add the following FDT Code Template (Window > Preferences > FDT > Editor > Templates)

var ${name} : Vector.<${type}> = new Vector.<${type}>();${cursor}

to quickly create new variables of type Vector.

Have fun!
Michael Plank