Need suggestions for a flash development environment (free)

[SunnyD]

I'm about to take up a hobby involving flash, but I need some development and/or learning tools to get stuff done. I can't quite afford anything "professional" right now (No Adobe, I'm not paying my first born). Any suggestions on what I should be looking into?

I assume Eclipse will be at the top of the heap, but what plugins and where to get them?

Thanks!

 

[Drakkon]

start here: http://osflash.org/projects

 

[SunnyD]

Originally posted by: Drakkon
start here: http://osflash.org/projects

Thanks. I was going to go the Eclipse route, but I came across FlashDevelop and am in love for the most part. It's a very Visual Studio like interface, and integrates quite nicely with the Flex SDK, MTASC and even haXe (which I haven't quite used yet).

Now all I need is a handy dandy little chart of all the Flash API.

 

[Drakkon]

Originally posted by: SunnyD
Now all I need is a handy dandy little chart of all the Flash API.

http://actionscriptcheatsheet....t-for-actionscript-20/

 

[SunnyD]

Originally posted by: Drakkon

Originally posted by: SunnyD
Now all I need is a handy dandy little chart of all the Flash API.

http://actionscriptcheatsheet....t-for-actionscript-20/

You know, I came across this a couple days ago, and I completely forgot about it. Thanks!

At least FlashDevelop automatically integrates the API into it's autocomplete stuff. That and I downloaded the AS3 Flash API LiveDocs from adobe too. Good stuff.

In case anyone cares, here's my first attempt at flash. (Click anywhere on the window once it loads - as many times as you want)

Took about 5 hours of trial and error before I got to where I wanted it. Definitely not clean, but it works.

 

[wwswimming]

Originally posted by: SunnyD
In case anyone cares, here's my first attempt at flash. (Click anywhere on the window once it loads - as many times as you want)

Took about 5 hours of trial and error before I got to where I wanted it. Definitely not clean, but it works.

you created the "TestAS2.swf" file using a program other than Flash ?

that is cool.

 

[SunnyD]

Originally posted by: wwswimming

Originally posted by: SunnyD
In case anyone cares, here's my first attempt at flash. (Click anywhere on the window once it loads - as many times as you want)

Took about 5 hours of trial and error before I got to where I wanted it. Definitely not clean, but it works.

you created the "TestAS2.swf" file using a program other than Flash ?

that is cool.

Indeed. No "assets" in the SWF, though those could easily be added with swfmill. This was done using FlashDevelop for the IDE and the Flex 3 SDK for the compiler, which is freely available from Adobe, and a little bit of guidance from some web tutorials, and the Flash API LiveDocs from Adobe.

 

[wwswimming]

i'm taking a second class in Flash & this last Friday we built our first Flex app.
i did one part of one section of the "Flex in a Week" tutorial at Adobe

http://www.adobe.com/devnet/flex/videotraining/

& got the impression that Flex is an "XML editor". though i have the feeling
it's a little more than that since Flex apps. don't have to have a browser to
function.

bottom line ~ learning Flex = learning XML + some ?

oh, this thread was about Flash.

 

[SunnyD]

Originally posted by: wwswimming
i'm taking a second class in Flash & this last Friday we built our first Flex app.
i did one part of one section of the "Flex in a Week" tutorial at Adobe

http://www.adobe.com/devnet/flex/videotraining/

& got the impression that Flex is an "XML editor". though i have the feeling
it's a little more than that since Flex apps. don't have to have a browser to
function.

bottom line ~ learning Flex = learning XML + some ?

oh, this thread was about Flash.

From what I gather, Flex is an XML wrapper around prebuild Flash components. I would say it's essentially the Visual Basic of Flash languages - designed more for rapid development and a limited scope (prepackaged component use). If you want to do fancier things with Flex, you're still going to be writing your own Actionscript code.

 

[SunnyD]

I noticed there are two different Visual Studio plugins that are/will be supporting Flex. One is already out, but requires a full VS2008 license - but the plug in is free. The other is in beta, but supposedly works with the Express editions as well.

Still looking for a decent GUI-based asset packager for Flash though. Right now I've been toying around with Silverlight...

http://www.neftastic.com/TestPage.html

Same thing as the flash version really, just done in Silverlight 2.0 with C#. At least with Silverlight I'd have the benefit of having the commercial tools (Expression + Visual Studio). Though the development paradigm is more like Flex than I was expecting...