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.

We are back from New York with some great memories, 3 pounds more on our ribs and a great success at Geeky by Nature. The premiere event by the experienced FlashOnTheBeach team was more than successful. It was a fantastic atmosphere with inspiring sessions. We had three FDT4 Max licenses up for grabs, but unfortunately only two lucky winners cracked the safe. So we are giving away another FDT4 Max online. (more…)

This is a Monthly Event – Last Tuesday of every month: 9:00 AM to 10:00 AM (PT)

Join our next Live Broadcast FDT4 workshop. Register here to keep you informed on the latest activities.

During this session we’ll run a small workshop, you will learn how to use FDT or help getting started, while covering some of latest new features.

This is also an opportunity to discuss code and best practices developing multi-target applications in ActionScript, Flex or haXe for the Desktop, Mobile and Web.

The sessions will be contingent on the audience attending.
Tell us what we should cover when you register.

If requested, we can also grab the latest FDT nightly build to show you some sneak peeks!

All you have to do is promise to keep your silence … but only if you really can!

Most of all, this is also a great opportunity to ask any question directly to the FDT team and give us feedback.

The session will be live on ustream.tv

On the behalf of the FDT Team, I wish you all Happy Coding.

Bruno Fonzi

Contact Bruno Fonzi @ Powerflasher for event and ticket information.

The FDT team has released a small update to FDT4 – 4.1.2.

FDT users, via JIRA, have let the team know that they were running into some problems with AIR application development. We’ve recognized that they needed to be fixed ASAP so we’ve spent a few days fixing them and it’s now ready to be released.

A special thank to Berend Weij, Joeri van Oostveen and Steven Sacks for their contribution.

We also fixed an issue when adding a string to the ‘-define’ compiler argument. It’s an edge case, but it was causing some issues for those who rely on it a good bit.

Download the update via FDT’s ‘Help>Check For Updates’ menu as described in our FAQ. To see the specific tickets we fixed, check the release notes.

FDT is built by Flash developers to support the needs of Flash developers!
And the FDT Product Design visuals are made by Flash developers too – in FDT4 of course!

We love the new FDT4 visuals and we love Flash. So we want to share with you the tool we´ve used to create this cool FDT4 visuals.

See how easily and quickly you can design your very own one of a kind wallpaper: 4 keys, one mouse, your inspiration.

Share your love on twitter or facebook, you are automatically in the lottery to win a FDT4 max licence.

Create your own FDT4 Wallpaper instructions:

Share/Save your FDT4 Wallpaper by clicking the following buttons. You will find this bar at the bottom of the page:

Have fun building your FDT4 wallpapers and be sure share it with your friends on Facebook or Twitter. Go and play on http://www.fdt4.com/WallpaperCreator

We are looking forward to see your creations!

Monday, September 27th 2010 you will be able to buy the new FDT 4 Pure, Plus or Max.

We are excited that FDT 4 is being considered the best Powerflasher release ever, and it’s thanks to you!

A bit of history

When Powerflasher was founded in 1997 as a digital interactive agency, many flash developers were missing a professional ActionScript code editor to build cutting edge software applications. In the year 2001 we decided to start building our own IDE based on Eclipse. The developers loved it and it spread like crazy. FDT 1.0 was born!

FDT 4 and the community

Starting in January 2010 with the release of FDT 3.5 we traveled the world to meet you at work, conferences (and of course some great parties). We openly shared the FDT 4 roadmap with you and, being big agile advocates, we made our internal iterations/sprints public free Milestones! We worked iteratively with you and we worked hard! Your contributions, constructive support, and great ideas were an integral part of the FDT 4 release and we think you’ll be pleased with the spectacular list of new features.

ActionScript 2 support

As Adobe is moving away from ActionScript 2, so is Powerflasher putting more effort into future languages as well. We however acknowledge there are still many projects developed in AS2, including some new exciting embedded devices applications. For this reason, we have decided to still offer FDT 3.5 with the full Enterprise features with AS2 support as an option for all FDT 4 customers for 99$

FDT Labs

In parallel to our milestones, we created the FDT labs, an open playground. We built the SDK  to empower you to create your own plug-ins and you did: The haXe (Beta) plug-in supported by Influxis and the FDT Code Metrix Pflection plug-in from iceX33. The Dependency Visualizer and Font Creator born from the labs playground as plug-ins are now core functionality of FDT 4!

We are committed in providing a cross-platform experience. We are very proud to have the opportunity to extend Linux support in our Labs with the help of the community.

New product names: Pure, Plus and Max

We kept the name Pure because we could not express better what the FDT Pure Coding Comfort is about. Pure great editing features enables the smooth workflow you are all raving about. FDT Professional is now called Plus. In addition to the Coding Comfort, Plus adds the navigation features to help you become more productive and work collaboratively. FDT Enterprise becomes Max. FDT Enterprise is not only for corporations, if you are either a freelancer or working in a team of power developers, performance is what you need! It’s about enabling developers to break barriers and maximize their productivity by taking advantage of state of the art IDE features power developers truly deserve.

New Prices

Since then we have released several upgrades, mostly for free. The last upgrade we charged was in the beginning of 2008 with the FDT 3 Enterprise release. For about tree years all upgrades were available for free, including FDT 3.5. We also decided to give all new FDT 3.5 buying customers a free FDT 4 upgrade! It’s now time to pay the bills and further invest to keep the engineering team and you happy.

Check the prices on our website.

Now get your hands on FDT and start coding.

Please use this temporary license until a new pesonalized key is available starting this Monday, September 27th 2010

Follow this link to Register and Download FDT 4

Special thanks…

The FDT 4 release is a result of this journey, thanks to your support and the passion of the big Powerflasher FDT family!

Stephanie, Meinhard, Philipp, Sebastian, Simon, Florian, Maxim, Keisuke, Olli, Britt, Stefan(s), Timo(s), Andre, Mattes, Alan, Clement, Bruno, Michael, Nico, Robertina, Sabrina and Carlo, the Powerflasher Developer and Designer Team (aka FDT guinea pigs) and last, but not least, you!!!

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