Flash 9 IDE
Adobe released a beta preview of the Flash 9 IDE yesterday morning. Basically they just shoehorned AS 3 support into the exisiting Flash 8 IDE. At least that’s how it looks on the surface but the more that I start using it the more I see the smaller touches that show its more than just some syntax highlighting support.
Actionscript 3 has been out for a while, available through Adobe Labs and I’ve been trying my best to wrap my mind around all the new changes. First I tried writing code in the Eclipse IDE, and then I tried in all the various Flex Builder betas, but I’m ashamed to admit that I ended up getting confused in both just with the initial setups required. I hate feeling stupid but trying to set those up to work correctly with AS 3 just ended up frustrating me. With the release of the Flash 9 IDE beta i knew that there were no more excuses for me to not starting learning AS 3 and the new (and better development mindset) needed to work with where Flash is going.
So after spending my first few hours with the IDE, I feel a little better. Some things really excite me, such as the ability to have documents use classes so you can truly seperate your actionscript code from the .fla file. I know that there have been various open source solutions that have been about to do that, but Adobe’s implementation definitely had an ease of use about it. Â Everything else that various Flash developers have been trumpeting, from the DisplayList, to having Sprites, and Shapes, do E4X are all exciting and finally allow for Flash to be used in ways that people have been trying to push Flash towards since Flash 5 and even early. I know from experience that developing a web application with Flash now is way way easier than it was when I for started with MPLN back in 2002, with Flash 5.
Flash is just an interesting hybrid of a product, with both designers and developers able to create some truly remarkable tools, applications, and just enjoyable creations. I can’t wait to see what people develop going forward and I really hope to be able to be one of those people that develop something spectacular and impressive with Flash in the future.
impressed