I'm starting a new development position with a company that implements many of its products in Adobe Flex. What tools should I look to install (Ubuntu Linux options prefered) for Flex development?

As dirkgently said, installing Flex Builder 3 in Linux is a great way to get going. It's quick and easy to get up and running, and since it's based on Eclipse, the overall environment is decent. That said, I was able to put together a decent Flex-building environment using Emacs and some third-party packages to get everything running under Linux. Here's a quick rundown of what I used (this isn't comprehensive--just what I can remember): Flex 3 SDK for Linux actionscript-mode.el for AS code highlighting nxml bundle for MXML code highlighting ani-fcsh.el for running fcsh from Emacs ECB for code browsing in Emacs snippet.el for creating code templates in Emacs This link was also helpful for getting started. It links to this article which talks about putting together a Flex development environment in Linux. I was able to put together some shell scripts for compiling and running applications. Note: I didn't do any debugging, though Adobe has some info about it. Note #2: If you decide to use Flex Builder, it will install the Flash Player 9 debugger version in your browser (you can tell it not to). I would recommend installing version 10's debugger . The builder will output a warning about not supporting the version, but everything else appears to work.

Development tools for Adobe Flex/AIR?

mico

Reputation: 719

about debugging - there is an external AIR debugger called MonsterDebugger which is pretty good

Upvotes: 0

bedwyr

Reputation: 5874

As dirkgently said, installing Flex Builder 3 in Linux is a great way to get going. It's quick and easy to get up and running, and since it's based on Eclipse, the overall environment is decent.

That said, I was able to put together a decent Flex-building environment using Emacs and some third-party packages to get everything running under Linux.

Here's a quick rundown of what I used (this isn't comprehensive--just what I can remember):

Flex 3 SDK for Linux
actionscript-mode.el for AS code highlighting
nxml bundle for MXML code highlighting
ani-fcsh.el for running fcsh from Emacs
ECB for code browsing in Emacs
snippet.el for creating code templates in Emacs

This link was also helpful for getting started. It links to this article which talks about putting together a Flex development environment in Linux. I was able to put together some shell scripts for compiling and running applications.

Note: I didn't do any debugging, though Adobe has some info about it.

Note #2: If you decide to use Flex Builder, it will install the Flash Player 9 debugger version in your browser (you can tell it not to). I would recommend installing version 10's debugger. The builder will output a warning about not supporting the version, but everything else appears to work.

Upvotes: 6

dirkgently

Reputation: 111130

If you can, try Flex Builder 3 alpha for Linux. That's the you can get (not without its set of pet peeves though!). It lacks the following however:

* Design view
* States view
* Refactoring
* Data Wizards
* Cold Fusion - Data Services Wizard
* Web Services introspection
* Profiler

Since AIR/Flex are cross-platform technologies, I don't see why you want to limit yourself to Linux. At least for the time being, I think you are better off with the proper Flex Builder 3 on Windows for development. You can then test your product(s) on Linux.

Upvotes: 0

Development tools for Adobe Flex/AIR?

Answers (3)

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