Flash on Tap conference in Boston was great! Thx to all the organizers for arranging such a nice community event.

Here are the slides and files of my talk about developing an application for the web and desktop simultaneously. You will find the examples about conditional compilation, separating code in SWF modules, building with ANT and a lot more in these resources:

Flash On Tap – Slides and Files

Have fun!
Michael

We have just released a new version of FDT (FDT 3.1.0 build 1011) which includes many new features and numerous bugfixes. You can find a list of all additional features and bugfixes here. In this article I’m going to show you how to improve and optimize your ActionScript development workflow by using the new features.

Installation

We now provide FDT installers for Windows and Max OS X. Simply download the appropriate installer and follow the installation instructions.
The FDT 3.1 installation includes Eclipse 3.3 (Europe) and the most important plug-ins for ActionScript development like Subversion (Subversive) and a XML Editor (WST).

If you already have installed Eclipse (3.3 or 3.4), you can use the “Find and Install” mechanism (Help > Software Updates > Find and Install) to integrate FDT in your existing Eclipse copy. Use the following URL for your new remote site: http://fdt.powerflasher.com/update

The Flex SDK 3.1 is included in both installation types and all core library settings are now configured automatically. This means that you can compile, debug and launch your ActionScript 3 projects immediately after the installation process.

Installing and setting up FDT 3.1 is now way faster than setting up previous versions of FDT.

Project Structure

It is very important to use a clear and continuous folder structure for your ActionScript projects. FDT helps you organize this structure.

If you create a new Flash Project it’s now possible to select “Create separate folders for sources and binaries” in the wizard.

You can configure those folders by pressing “Configure defaults…” or by opening the FDT Build Path preferences window.

In the following example I will use dev/src as my source folder and dev/deploy as my output folder.

FDT will automatically put all SWF and SWC files into the deploy folder.

AIR Support

Developing AIR applications with FDT 3.1 is also very easy now. Simply create a launcher for viewing and debugging your application and one launcher to release it as .air file.

To create an AIR debug launch configuration select your Document Class in the Flash Explorer and then open the Run Dialog (Run > Open Run Dialog…). Double click “FDT AS3 Application “ to create a new launch configuration. After that select the “Start” tab and choose “AIR Debug Launcher” as viewer.

Press the “Run“ button to compile and launch your AIR application. FDT automatically generates a default application XML file into your output folder.

To release and package your AIR application open the Run Dialog and double click “FDT AIR Application Release” and configure the settings on the right-hand side.

Michael Plank

Jens Franke pampers us by creating a complete set of interesting tutorials around ActionScript 3 workflows. He will attend to several topics during the next days. It’s better than school: If you pay attention, you’ll not only improve your knowledge, you will also gain the opportunity to win one of many interesting prices (including FDT Professional)

The whole workshop – and that’s unfortunate for all non-german speaking coders – is held in German.
Visit Jens’ blog: http://blog.jensfranke.com/actionscript-3-workflow-special/

Update:

Please note that developing AIR applications with FDT 3 is very easy now. Simply create a launcher for viewing and debugging your application and one launcher to release it as .air file. To create an AIR debug launch configuration select your Document Class in the Flash Explorer and then open the Run Dialog (Run > Open Run Dialog…). Double click “FDT AS3 Application “ to create a new launch configuration. After that select the “Start” tab and choose “AIR Debug Launcher” as viewer.

Press the “Run“ button to compile and launch your AIR application. FDT automatically generates a default application XML file into your output folder.
To release and package your AIR application open the Run Dialog and double click “FDT AIR Application Release” and configure the settings on the right-hand side. See new post: http://fdt.powerflasher.com/blog/?p=94

Previous Post:

On October 1, 2007 Adobe released the beta 2 version of AIR (Adobe Integrated Runtime), formerly known as Apollo.
As a cross-operating system runtime AIR provides developers with the possibility to deploy RIAs to the desktop. This is very promising regarding the users interaction with the web because it provides a faster access to related data by using native desktop applications. On top of this, AIR applications can have a great look and feel by using customized windows.
All you need to do if you want to build those cool things is to download the Runtime, which is required to run any Adobe AIR application and to also download the Flex 3 SDK. The latter includes as well the AIR SDK as the AIR compiler, the AIR debug launcher and the AIR packager. These tools can be used together with ANT to map the whole AIR workflow.
To distribute AIR applications means to pack the required files like swfs, assets and the application descriptor file. These packages are used by the runtime environment, which should be installed at first, to make sure that all AIR applications will work.
Nico Zimmerman promised that there will be an add-on for FDT to support the AIR workflow with which it will be much easier to develop AIR applications.
Now, let’s take a closer look at the current workflow and let’s build a “hello world” Air application step by step.<!–[endif]–>

1. Download and install the Runtime (http://labs.adobe.com/downloads/air.html).
2. Download the Flex 3 SDK (http://labs.adobe.com/technologies/flex/sdk/flex3sdk.html).<!–[endif]–>
3. Now you can start your eclipse in the FDT perspective and add a new AS3 core library.
   • Window -> Preferences -> FDT -> Core Libraries -> AS3 Core Libraries -> Add…
   • 2. Choose Flex 3 SDK with AIR as Type, type in “Flex3_AIR” as Name and choose a path variable by clicking the “Browse…” button. If there is no variable linking to the Flex 3 SDK, click “New…”, type in “Flex3SDK_AIR” as Name and add the Path to your Flex 3 SDK folder. Press a few times OK, to get back to eclipse.
     
4. Now you’re prepared to start with your first AIR application in FDT: create a New Flash Project with the Name “Hello World”. Choose Action Script 3 with your new core library (“Flex3_AIR”) as the project language and press “Finish”.
   
5. Downloading this zip-file and copying the content to your project folder is the easiest way to go on. The zip-file contains a settings folder within an assets folder. The settings folder contains the application descriptor file which is essential for running AIR applications. This file contains parameters as well for the AIR application as for the first window. You have to customize these parameters as explained in the comments in the file.
   Note that the content tag and all tags marked “required” are very important to run the AIR application! Rename the application descriptor file like shown in this example: “-app.xml” (e.g. “powerflasher-app.xml”).
   
6. Add the “src” folder to the classpath and double-click the “Build-Air”file. The most important properties which you have to customize are marked with comments and are located at the top of the file.
   • Clean -> Deletes the built directories.
   • Build directories -> Creates directories. “Debug” contains the compiled swf for debugging, “build” contains the compiled swf for publishing and “publish” contains the final AIR file.
   • Compile for debuging -> Uses the mxml compiler with a special air parameter to compile the AIR swf. Instead of that you can use the amxml compiler as normal as you use the mxml compiler.
   • Compile for publishing -> Does the same as “Compile for debuging”.
   • Test application -> Uses the AIR debug launcher (ADL) to start the AIR application without packaging and installation. The ADL uses the application descriptor file to set up the window.
   • Package application -> Uses the AIR development tool (ADT) to package all required files to an AIR package.
   • Create certificate -> Uses the ADT to create a certificate which is required to sign and build the AIR package.
7. Now you are ready to create the ActionScript Classnamed “HelloWorld”. The code should look like this:

   package
   {
       import flash.display.Sprite;
       import flash.text.TextField;
       import flash.text.TextFieldAutoSize;
   
       /**
        * @author Stephan Partzsch
        */
       public class HelloWorld extends Sprite
       {
   
           public function HelloWorld()
           {
               var textField:TextField = new TextField();
               textField.autoSize = TextFieldAutoSize.CENTER;
   
               textField.text = "Hello world!";
   
               textField.x = (stage.stageWidth - textField.width) / 2;
               textField.y = (stage.stageHeight - textField.height) / 2;
   
               this.addChild(textField);
           }
   
       }
   }

8. Open the ANT view. You can find it here: Window -> Show View -> Other -> ANT. Drag the “Build_Air” file to the ANT view and double-click number 4 to test your application. Create a certificate with number 7 and than double-click number 6 to package your first AIR application.
   
9. Finally you find HelloWorld.air in your project directory in the publish folder. Double-click it to install it on your desktop.<!–[endif]–>

Of course, you can also download this sample project right here.
That’s it and I hope I could demonstrate the workflow of AIR so that you can go on with developing ultra-cool AIR applications. 🙂

Stephan