Flashmech.net

It has been quite a while since I bought my Mac, and frankly speaking, I wished that I had known such a post like the one I’m writing here so that I knew where to get great Mac softwares at affordable prices. I mean, who doesn’t like to grab an application that is 85% off its original price?

I’ve since grabbed a couple of bundles here and there, and thought it will be an excellent idea to share these treasure sites. May you find the same sentiments.

Current, hottest bundles

Quite frankly, I bought this bundle because of Path Finder. I’ve heard of plenty of great reviews about it for very long, not to mention why I hear such reviews was because I was searching for an alternative to Finder. It was too much a clutter. Of course, the bundle came with other surprises like DragThing, Socialite and Radio Gaga which I’m enjoying since the day they were installed.

Something worthy of note, that when MacUpdate Promo is not selling bundled softwares, they still have great daily deals.

This bundle is specially catered for Flash Developers and freelancers I must say. Almost all the applications are business oriented, geared towards helping independent freelancers with their work. Definitely worth a check.

I have been following this for quite some time. It seems that the promotion never runs out! However, the content of the bundle changes each time the timer hits zero. Coupled with their weekly specials, you might want to check back every so often.

Off season bundles

MacHeist has been as popular as they are successful. They have just finished their nanoBundle, but from experience, they are always cooking something up.

This is the bundle for graphic designers and photographers alike!

I missed this completely. Shame on me. Heard that there were some really cool deals. Oh well, there’s always a next time!

This bundle seems to be coming soon. Do keep your eyes on them!

Other than the above bundles, this site is also of worthy mention. They bring great discounts on applications daily.

Have fun app-shopping!

Call it a case of bad advertising I will. In the line of work that I’m in, I can’t help but feel this way. :/

In my opinion, FlashTracer was the best thing that happened in Flash development on the browser. However, ever since I upgraded to Firefox 3, I landed myself in pain. FlashTracer was no longer working for the new version of Firefox, and umpteen checks on the addon page yielded no updates.

I was disappointed (and was still in much pain).

Only recently did a friend of mine tell me that there _was_ an update for FlashTracer for Firefox 3, which was available _way back_ in July. Shocked and stunned by my blindness, I asked him why I couldn’t find it on the FlashTracer addon page. It was then that he told me that I have to google it~ :S

Well so, here it is, FlashTracer v2.3.1 (saving you from the extra step of searching). I’m not surprised if there are still people out there who aren’t aware of this, so help spread the word!

UML is the kind of programmers’ lingo that I have a vague knowledge about—it involves diagrams describing classes. After hearing about it a year ago, I still only have a rough idea about it. The exact details are somehow too much for me to find out (read:mental block).

So back when Trevor McCauley (Senocular) first posted about UML and the ability to use them to generate ActionScript 3.0 classes, I was _psyched!_

The hurdle was however, still apparent.

Fundamentally, I still have no idea how something exactly describes itself in UML. To complicate things a little further, StarUML’s interface seems a bit too overwhelming to explore without some proper guidelines or tutorials.

My wish came true when Trevor posted his latest beta release of ActionScript 3.0 generation with StarUML yesterday. With it came a full tutorial on exactly how to accomplish this feat. *w00t~!*

As a self-taught programmer, I regard understanding UML highly. This explains why I’m going to invest today to soak up the article, since this knowledge will aid a long way in molding me into a better OOP programmer.

Aren’t you checking it out too?

After several months of waiting, FlashDevelop 3 Beta 8 is now out!

I’m a fan of this awesome editor, and I almost couldn’t imagine myself coding in any other environment now without FlashDevelop. After installation and running through, all I can say is that it’s definitely worth the time to upgrade.

Don’t take my word for it, give it a roll yourself.

Check out the list of new features being rolled out, or simply download it now. *w00t~!*

Huge thanks go out to the FlashDevelop team which puts together such a great editor.

For my recent presentation on the Gaia Framework for Adobe Flash, I chose to steer away from my usual FlashDevelop editor to use FDT.

Since I never code in Flash IDE anymore, and that I use FlashDevelop daily, in this review of FDT I shall present a view that’s unique by comparing the two. I am no Flex developer and chances to use MXML is far in between, so this review will also be focused on using FDT to code ActionScript.

Importing

After using the Gaia Framework to generate the core files for me, importing them into a new project in the workspace was pretty easy.

Flash Explorer (Pane) -> Right Click -> Import… -> General -> File System

It took me a while to understand that I have to set the “Source Folder” for the codes to parse.

Flash Explorer (Pane) -> Right Click on folder -> Source Folder -> Add to Classpath

Code Warnings / Errors

Right after parsing the codes, the “Problems” pane became full of warnings (400+ to be exact). While I think it’s very useful to know about warnings and errors, showing me all the warnings found in the Gaia Framework and TweenLite were too much for me. If my code has a warning now, I will probably not notice since I’m never going to sieve through all those warnings to find mine.

It’ll be better if there’s a function to NOT SHOW the warnings from certain packages/classes.

[UPDATE 2: As highlighted by Maxim, Eclipse has a filter mechanism (Configure the filters to be applied to this view) for the "Problems" View (upper right corner of the view).]

This way, we don’t have to sieve through codes that have warnings that were not written by us in the first place.

What’s good however, is that errors are made known to me while I’m typing, and I can immediate correct it. This is invaluable and something that FlashDevelop doesn’t provide. Solid feature.

TODOs

While both FlashDevelop and FDT provide the “Tasks” pane to keep track of TODOs, FDT shines better as it provides checkboxes, and allows you to prioritise your tasks.

Templates / Snippets

(Ctrl+Space)
I’ve learnt to code so much faster with snippets in FlashDevelop that I tend to reject any editor without this type of feature. I’m glad that FDT provides a similar feature called Templates.

Windows -> Preferences -> FDT -> Editor -> Templates

It makes me a happier person that FDT’s templates are even more robust, in that you can set variables in place so that when you generate it, it lets you go through and change each variable via a tab process.

Open Resource

(Ctrl+Shift+R)
I love this feature in eclipse, and since FDT is built into eclipse, I’m happy to be able to use this feature again. FlashDevelop does not have this type of feature which makes finding files on large projects a hazard.

However, if the resource that I found and opened is a .fla file, the IDE tries to open it in eclipse itself, which of course, is undesirable. I’m not sure if FDT is able to do anything to change that, but will definitely make this feature stand out even more if it opens up in Flash IDE instead. Another work around is filtering out .fla files altogether. The former is definitely better.

[UPDATE 3: Even though editing this does not affect Open Resource, it is still good to know. Maxim mentioned that you can open .fla files in Flash IDE from FDT.]

Window -> Preferences -> FDT -> Tools -> Flash -> Flash IDE

Refactor

Both features, namely “Rename” and “Move” of refactoring are great. I can rename variables and move them from one package to another, and it automatically updates all references. Very awesome. Given the fact that FlashDevelop does not have something like that, it makes FDT stand out even more.

Quick Outline

(Ctrl+O)
There are so much use cases for this one because it’s so useful. All I have to do is to press the shortcut, and I can select what I’m looking for, and will be brought to the location. This is something that I wished FlashDevelop has without me needing to go through my codes, or worse, someone else’s.

Type Hierarchy

(Ctrl+T)
This feature is a worthy mention. In FlashDevelop, I often find myself looking up classes and their ancestors by hitting F4 multiple times. In order to check a certain class ancestry, depending on the situation, I might have to do these quite a number of times. It’s convenient, but once it spans over a few classes, the process becomes cumbersome.

The “Type Hierarchy” feature on the other hand, brings up the entire ancestry and in a single glance, I can see if the class inherits from another certain class. This saves me a fair amount of time from opening those extraneous files.

Code Assist

(Ctrl+Space)
While the Code Assist feature is great, it is a hassle to use. It only comes up whenever I hit the shortcut, which slows me down considerably. I was not able to find a way to make Code Assist come up as soon as I type something, unlike FlashDevelop, which has this as its default behaviour.

[UPDATE 4: Find how to boost your code assist!]

Contextual Code Generation

(Ctrl+1)
Unless it’s not known to me, FlashDevelop does better in this area. In FlashDevelop I was able to generate functions (including getters and setters), implement interfaces and promote variables, all by using a single shortcut. I was not able to find such a feature in FDT.

[UPDATE 1: After a hint by Kris, I played around and managed to find the shortcut to perform contextual code generation in FDT is Ctrl+1. It was however, still not as good as FlashDevelop in my opinion, since I was not able to implement interfaces with this shortcut.

A particular note to generate functions is that you have to end off the variable with parenthesis before it will work for functions.]

[UPDATE 2: Maxim pointed out to me that the "Quick Assist" function (Ctrl+1), is able to implement interfaces too. Read his full comment on it. ]

Code Formatting

(Ctrl+Shift+F)
I adore the details that FDT allows me to customise the way to auto format my codes. For the first time, if I’m taking over someone else’s project, I can simply hit the shortcut, and dirty formatting are instantly cleaned to the way I like it. Set your preferences in:

Window -> Preferences -> FDT -> Code Style -> Formatter

SWC Browsing

Not something that I view as important, FDT is able to view what classes are inside an SWC, and generates a class with its methods and variables for a detailed look. SWC browsing takes other people packaged code to a view that’s neater and easier to refer.

FlashDevelop on the other hand, even offers you to see an overview of the classes used in both SWF and SWC, although there’s no generated source to peek.

Cross Platform

Love the fact that FDT is able to work in both Windows and Mac OS environments. As FlashDevelop uses the Microsoft .NET 2.0 framework, it can only run in Windows.

Price

The price is possibly the biggest hold back for me, since FlashDevelop is free to use.