We are proud to announce our next great and big update for FDT 5. Right now it’s a beta version but the final release is planned very soon. It will be a free update for all FDT 5 customers. We added some great new features to this “major minor release” and we’re sure you’ll like them. The main feature we integrated is the new community feature “SWF Bridge”. It allows you to write your own FDT Plug-Ins in ActionScript. Nearly everything is possible, so check out Alan’s blogpost and get started with your first official FDT Plug-In. But there is a lot more in it:

New Features

• SWFBridge
• Blackberry Integration
• ANE Support
• FDT Setup Wizard
• Conditional Breakpoints
• Instance Breakpoints
• Exception Breakpoints
• Selectable Debugger SDK
• Quick Fix to generate a getter and/or setter at Class-Instance
• Quick Assist to generate a getter and/or setter at Class-Instance
• Enable choosing the default view player for debug/run dialog

Improvements

• Automatically rename fields when create getters and setters.
• Change field to private after setter/getter generation
• QuickFix for new code should take priority over Assist
• Profile & Debug without compiling
• Flexible SDK setups
• New Project Templates
• New Project Template Featuers
• Set default for haXe Flash projects to AVM 2
• Captive runtime GUI support
• Change Exit Postion For ‘Create Field In Class…’
• Update haXe SDK OSX, Linux & Win to 2.08
• Update Neko OSX, Linux & Win to 1.8.2

Known issues can be found in our Jira.

New License Management

We also added a complete new license management to support a highly requested new licensing model: subscriptions. With the new license management FDT will verify the key with a license server on our side. A blogpost with detailed information will be released a few days before the final release.

Download

Update: FDT 5.5 is about to be released; we have disabled the download of the beta to avoid confusion. Stay tunned everyone!

To download the FDT 5.5 Beta just go to our special code site and enter the special code FDT55BETA. An E-Mail with a beta license key (valid until May 8th) and the download links will be send to you right after registration.

Issuetracker

If you find any bugs or other issues during the beta test please let us know in the Jira.

We wish you a lot of fun testing the new version and are excited to hear your feedback.

Happy coding!

Compilation Improvements and new AS3 Formatter Compile your Flash/Flex/AIR projects way faster now and chain up launch configurations for complex build processes. The new AS3 Formatter gives you even more settings to configure your code style.

• Faster Compilation

By using the Flex Compiler API instead of FCSH/MXMLC compile speed of both full and incremental build has increased tremendously.

• Less Memory Consumption

By getting rid of FCSH memory consumption was also reduced dramatically especially in bigger projects with multiple modules.

• Launcher Chains

The new tab “Launcher Chain” in the FDT launch configurations makes it possible to chain up launch configs of any type as well as ANT targets in any desired order. This makes it very easy to setup complex build processes.

• New AS3 Formatter

Even more options in the AS3 Formatter settings to configure your code style.

• Use Embed source paths relative to the src folder 
• Compile progress shown in FDT Progress panel 

• Launch Configurations are saved in the project by default

• Button next to Run/Debug to reset all active compiler instances

• Flex Compiler API is also used in FDT ANT tasks

• Flex SDK version compatibility restrictions deactivated

Known Issues

<fdt.startDebugger/> ANT task broken

Note:

If you’ve changed the default project types and templates, FDT will reset them after updating.

Download

• Existing FDT4 users: If you have FDT4 already you can get the latest update from the Eclipse menu item Help->Check for Updates
• New FDT4 users: If new to FDT4, you can download the latest milestone standalone installer here for a 30 days trial.
• Current FDT3 users: If you hold a FDT 3 license already, either Pure, Professional or Enterprise, you can run full FDT4 Beta features until released. Enjoy!
• New FDT 3.5 users: If you bought FDT 3.5 after 25 January 2010 FDT 4 is free for you!

Additional improvements or bug fixes in M4: bugs.powerflasher.com

Fixed Bugs

[FDT-817] – Nesting try-catch blocks render false errors for the error instance

[FDT-825] – Back References has duplicate items in Profiler

[FDT-858] – missing error warning at missing space in code

[FDT-872] – Function file import statements do not get fixed during refactoring

[FDT-881] – Launch configuration for swc library doesn’t use -external-library-path

[FDT-918] – Vector class not imported when targeting Flash 10

[FDT-921] – Missing Autocomplection after newline seprated dot.

[FDT-928] – Exporting AIR release build uses wrong Flex SDK.

[FDT-933] – Highlighting matching bracket is flickering, when making a selection by cursor keys

[FDT-940] – Problem using post-compile Ant task inside an AS3 launch profile

[FDT-990] – Init outline throws error when closing editor

[FDT-1033] – FDT Library Launcher must remove -is compiler arg when using manifest.xml

[FDT-1042] – compilation flex sdk 4.1

[FDT-1065] – Nullpointer exception when choosing “auto addd RSLS on debug” during launch

[FDT-1069] – AIR Application release broken

[FDT-1072] – Create AIR Certificate has no function anymore

[FDT-1073] – Compiler Arguments auto add carriage returns inbetween arguments

[FDT-1077] – Launching with SDK > 3.5 invokes no viewer. Halts on fcsh complete.

[FDT-1079] – FDT does not compile, after Exception is thrown

[FDT-1086] – Exception while opening project – restart of eclipse needed

[FDT-1114] – Fix Shortcut for Rename refactoring

[FDT-1115] – Automaticly fix library path of old launchers

[FDT-1116] – Organize Import always adds blank line after last import

Improvement
[FDT-124] – Add “Check All” button in Formatter preferences
[FDT-879] – ANT task for FDT Profiler
[FDT-919] – Cannot add Linked Libraries via FDT Build Path Preferences
[FDT-988] – Icons for new features in FDT 4
[FDT-1081] – Tracing a variable by typing its name with or without “;”
[FDT-1118] – Build time infos should not be red

Known Issues
Working on these issues now check our bugs.powerflasher.com

Beside the ongoing development of FDT 4 we have been working on a service release for our FDT 3.5 product line lately. This service release (Version 3.5.0.1094) fixes some major bugs like the FDT startup issue. FDT 3.5 is now also compatible with the Flex SDK 4 (except MXML 2009 features).

To install the update just go to Help > Install New Software > Work with: (select:) FDT Update Site

Here’s the list of fixed issues: FDT 3.5 SR1.

Thanks to all our bugs.powerflasher.com FDT friends helping us improve the product!