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I have tried my best to make the title as self-explanatory as possible, but pardon me if you still have no idea what I’m referring to. However, more importantly is that this tip saved me a great deal of time, so I would suggest any FDT user to read this. 
When you have a constant declared in a class, it is always considered good practice to refer to it with the class name. Meaning,
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 | package { public class Test { public static const APP_NAME:String = "fdt-tip"; public function Test () { // Best practice to include class's name trace(Test.APP_NAME); } } } |
As you can see from the above example, I referred to the constant using the class’s name. In our above example though, there is no issue since we’re only referring to the constant once.
Things start to worsen if the constant is referred to A LOT OF TIMES. Now it gets even worse if we had named our classes based on the display objects’ hierarchy, with class names looking like WrapperPageContentViewGenericSprite. *loL~* What if you actually have several classes with similar class names, e.g. WrapperPageContentViewUniqueSprite, WrapperPageGenericView, WrapperPage? At this point, even code-hinting will take you some time to filter through to the right class.
Head right on to Preferences > FDT > Editor > Templates and click on the “New…” button.
Here’s what I recommend to enter in the fields:
Name: tt (your own preference)
Context: AS2/AS3
Automatically Insert: Checked
Description: Fills in the current class (your own preference)
Pattern: ${enclosing_type}
After you are done creating this template, click the “OK” button. Try it out now! Simply type “tt” (or whatever is your shortcut), and press enter: the class’s name will now be automatically inserted for you. No fuss anymore, and no more excuses for not coding with best practices. 
[UPDATE: Thanks to Matt, I've added in OSX paths to the Flash Players.]
For those folks who have upgraded to Adobe Flash CS4 and also installed FDT 3 as your editor, you would have realised that when you create a new Flash project in FDT, there will no longer be a Flash_CS3 language type in the Project Language drop down. It is missing by default, but in this article, I’ll go through with you on how to get those much needed project languages back into your FDT development environment. 
In your New Flash Project dialog, click on the “Configure defaults…” link button.
That will lead you to the Core Libraries dialog panel in Preferences, which you can usually access via the menu:
Window > Preferences… > FDT > Core Libraries
First, click on the AS3 Core Libraries tab, and then click on the Add button.
The Core Library dialog is where you will create your new core libraries. Choose Flash CS3 for type, and give your core library a name. In my case I gave it “CS4_FP9″, which stands for “Flash CS4 using Flash Player 9″. Of course, you can give any fancy name that you want. To proceed in choosing a path variable for your core library, click on the Browse button.
Now the Link Libraries dialog will be opened, and it is here where we can choose which library to be used for the path variable. Click on the “New…” button.
This is the final step. In the New Variable dialog, first give a name for your new variable. I chose to use the same convention when naming the core library, which is “CS4_FP9″. Again, it is up to your own fancy in giving it a name. In the Location field, click on the Folder button and browse to:
Windows XP: C:\Program Files\Adobe\Adobe Flash CS4\Common\Configuration\ActionScript 3.0\FP9
OSX: /Applications/Adobe Flash CS4/Common/Configuration/ActionScript 3.0/FP9
If you are working on Windows Vista or Mac OS, please kindly let me know the path by leaving a comment below. I’ll update this post thereafter. Thanks.
That’s it! You’re done! Well almost if you ask me. We do want to be able to use Flash Player 10 in our projects too right? Click on all the OK buttons but stop when you are back in the Preferences dialog box. From here, repeat Step 2 to 5. The location for the Flash Player 10 swc is in:
Windows XP: C:\Program Files\Adobe\Adobe Flash CS4\Common\Configuration\ActionScript 3.0\FP10
OSX: /Applications/Adobe Flash CS4/Common/Configuration/ActionScript 3.0/FP10
After finishing the above, you can now truly click on all the OK buttons to get back to the New Flash Project dialog, and see that you can now target the correct Flash Player while developing with FDT. Happy coding! 
Comments(0) Thanks to the FDT’s blog, I got to a well written and detailed article titled, “Setting up Eclipse for Flash Developers”, by sascha. I would highly recommend fellow Flash developers to take a look at it.
Personally though, I needed more tools in my toolbox for several other languages that I’m experimenting/developing. Thus, I want to take this chance to share with you some of the nice plugins out there that I find to be really useful during my development.
My PHP editor of choice is Aptana PHP. You can see why from this excellent comparison table that Smashing Magazine has put up.
Aptana: PHP Development Environment:
http://update.aptana.com/install/php/3.2/
Aptana: Aptana RadRails Development Environment:
http://update.aptana.com/install/rails/3.2/
Aptana: Support for Apple iPhone and iPod Touch:
http://update.aptana.com/install/iphone/3.2/
Aptana: Ajax support for Adobe AIR:
http://update.aptana.com/install/air/1.5/3.2/
Aptana PyDev:
http://pydev.sourceforge.net/updates/
Android ADT:
http://dl-ssl.google.com/android/eclipse/
I thought adding this will be useful, as on many occasions I had to search high and low for this information. Saving myself (and possibly others) from wasting time in the future, I’ve decided to list them here:
Comments(0) This just came in so you know it’s hot and fresh~
A week ago, the FDT guys just presented over at the London Flash Platform User Group. They just uploaded the videos to the sessions, so do check it out!
I’ve yet to watch the videos yet, but I’m very excited to learn about logging with SOS. If you’re wondering what’s SOS, simply check out its product page.
