Flash: FDT Workflow, debugging with FDT with SOS or the built in Debugger October 27, 2008
Powerflasher's FDT is the best actionscript editor on the planet (yes IMO better than FlexBuilder), SOS is it's one of the two primary options.
SOS is a Java based Trace Console that is much faster than the one built into Flash CS3, it offers regexp for filtering, searching, line coloring, collapsing. It's fast, and it's XMLSocket based so can be used pretty much anywhere. It has some neat features that allow you to create menus that issue commands, so your app can 'talk' to the SOS, creating menu items to callback to run different tests. Here's a long post covering how to use it.
A new one in FDT Enterprise is the built in Debugger. Which works similarly to the one built into Eclipse for coding Java (also similar to the one in the Flash IDE) allowing breakpoints, introspecting variables, stepping through. This useful feature as far as I know hasn't been in any non-Adobe tool, up to this point, as it has only recently become possible. Here's a great short tutorial if you haven't used it before.
4 responses to 'Flash: FDT Workflow, debugging with FDT with SOS or the built in Debugger'
when did FDT become open source? or perhaps you could enlighten a poor bastard on your technique?
mac or pc? i’m on mac, and trying to decide if it’s worth the switch to FDT from flexbuilder.
Ryan, I mis-wrote, I meant non-Adobe tools Sorry to get your hopes up. But if you have a compelling open source project the PowerFlasher has given away free licenses to good community causes. Or if you’re a student you can get it for half off.
Trevor, both. The Eclipse/FDT is written in Java so should be able to run either place. My understanding from the FDT blogs is that great strides have been made to make installation much easier in the past, Like I updated to the FDT 3.1, which includes Eclilpse + FlexBuilder. They have a free demo to try it out so I’d recommend doing that first.
http://fdt.powerflasher.com/blog/?paged=2
ha you got my hopes up there… well i’ve got bits and bobs of open source code but alas no formal project. (thats a good reason to start!)
hey trevor… i’d give fdt a serious run for its money… but be warned flex builder and fdt don’t play nicely so before you install try the standalone or run it in a separate eclipse install…
in the end i stick with flex builder but only because I really love mxml; flex builder compliments mxml development way better than fdt… on the other hand if you are well into your actionscript go for fdt… it’s like actionscript on steroids…
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