Flex Builder source code derived from Eclipse is available.

December 11, 2007

So I know this has been blogged about before… but I feel like it’s a relatively obscure little gem in the Flex/Flash world so I thought I’d throw it up on the wall again with the hope that it might give other people the desire to create useful Flex/Flash/AIR plug-ins.

One of the readers of my last post on my Flex Builder 4 wishlist commented that Flex Builder shouldn’t be built on Eclipse and Adobe should open it up to other vendors such as JetBrains (of IntelliJ/ReSharper fame). While I am a huge fan of ReSharper and IntelliJ… I believe the reasons for having the Flex Builder code base built on the Eclipse platform far outweigh the benefits of having it be built as an IDEA plugin.

The largest reason being that the Eclipse core is open source and according to the EPL any code derived from the Eclipse source must also be open source. This means the core of Flex Builder… the Eclipse code that was derived for Flex Builder… which includes editor code, debugger code, workbench code… must also be open source.

You can find the Flex Builder 2 source based on Eclipse 3.1.2 here: http://www.adobe.com/go/4b243413

Aside:

The flexibility of the Eclipse platform to adapt itself as development tasks evolve will be a cornerstone to it’s usefulness as an IDE and will act as a catalyst to propel the evolution of Adobe’s Flash/Flex/AIR tooling. Evidence of this can be found in an excellent plugin built by Stephen (Spike) Milligan (main contributor to the CFEclipse plugin) at http://www.yellowbadger.com/ which was targeted at the Flex 1.x/AS2 framework and built on the Eclipse platform. I had discovered and was using this plugin a full year before the Zorn (Flex Builder 2) release had been rumored. I was also using Eclipse for all my Java development at IBM and lately… I’ve been using it to teach myself Ruby. Having one editor with multiple perspectives for doing radically different development projects is my dream come true. Eclipse is not without it’s fault’s and does have some shortcomings (It can be a memory pig with a capital P1GB). But ram is cheap… Who doesn’t run 2 gigs?

3 Comments | AIR, Flex, FlexBuilder | Tagged: , , , | Permalink
Posted by Clint Modien

Flex Builder 4 Feature Wish List

December 10, 2007

The Flex Builder IDE is something I use for hours on end every day. Having used other IDE’s (Eclipse, IntelliJ, and VisualStudio) for various languages such as Java, C# as well as ActionScript… if Flex Builder was able to simply duplicate some of the features of these IDE’s and plug-ins then it could significantly increase developer productivity. Since the JetBrains (maker of IntelliJ) Resharper suite of extensions is the most intelligent list of IDE productivity enhancements… I’ll make use of it here to explain my wish list.

1. Code Templates : http://www.jetbrains.com/resharper/features/code_templates.html

2. Quick Fixes : http://www.jetbrains.com/resharper/features/code_analysis.html#Quick-Fixes

3. Better refactoring support : http://www.jetbrains.com/resharper/features/code_refactoring.html

4. Better Navigation : http://www.jetbrains.com/resharper/features/code_templates.html

5. Clickable stack traces in the console

6. Better Code Selection : http://www.jetbrains.com/resharper/features/coding_assistance.html#Extend/Shrink_Selection_full

7. Unit Testing Tool Support : http://www.jetbrains.com/resharper/features/unit_testing.html

8. Unit Test Code Coverage Tool: Alex Uhlman is developing one (Adobe Consulting)

9. TODO/FIXME Plugin: http://www.jetbrains.com/resharper/features/navigation_search.html#ToDo_List_full

a. One was written by Dirk Eismann (used to work on the FB team @ Adobe) you can find it here: http://www.richinternet.de/blog/index.cfm?entry=06D9E73F-BF55-CE91-017BD895EBAAD5CB

10.Integrated support for WebORB’s data services (.NET, Ruby, PHP, Java)

11.Edit and Continue.. almost forgot :)

12.And then all of the above… for JavaScript editing for AIR apps.

19 Comments | AIR, Flex, FlexBuilder | Permalink
Posted by Clint Modien