Posted on 2008-07-01

Flash on free software: FlashDevelop and Flex SDK

I have been recently asked a couple of times about the source code that I publish and how to compile it. I decided to write a short note on that.

For my experiments, I use a combination of FlashDevelop and the free Flex SDK from Adobe Open Source. It is much better suited to work with AS3 then Flash IDE, and what's most cool – it is 100% free!

To start developing Flash on free software, you simply need to download and install FlashDevelop and the Flex SDK. Installing the SDK means merely downloading a ZIP and copying its contents into a folder on your disk. Please also note that FlashDevelop is currently available for PC only.

Once you have both, open FlashDevelop, go to the 'Tools > Program Settings' menu, choose the 'AS3Context' group and look for the 'Flex SDK Location' property. Set it to the folder where you just copied/installed the SDK. Now create a new project with the 'Actionscript 3 Default Project' template and you are ready to go. Really, it is so simple!

For a more in depth coverage of the topic you can refer to this thread on the FlashDevelop forum. Also, John Lindquist from PV3D.org posted a very good tutorial on FlashDevelop and Papervision3D, so be sure to read that too.

Since in FlashDevelop you do not have a FLA file to work with, there is no library either. That means that external assets are not imported, and they must be embedded in a different way. For that, the Flex style [Embed] tag is used.

I prepared a little test project in FlashDevelop that illustrates how to embed different types of objects (images, sounds, movieclips and fonts) with this technique. Download it, take a look at the source code and I am sure you will grasp the concept in no time. If you installed FlashDevelop with the Flex SDK properly, you should be able to compile this project and see the results. For a more in depth information about embedding assets in Flex refer to the official documentation.

Overall, for 3D in Flash this setup is much better then the traditional Flash IDE. It is more flexible, you do not need to keep an empty FLA file used only to compile SWFs, and since there is no timeline and no frames, you can only write code in classes – and this enforces better OOP practices!

Skitsanos commented on July 2nd, 2008

[Embed] actually have nothing to do with Flex. It’s just ActionScript 3 meta command. You trying to point the difference between embedding things via wizards and keep them in FLA as Flash IDE does and classy way, where everything done manually via ActionScript 3. Not necessary for Flex, there are plenty of other UI frameworks for ActionScript 3, Flex is just one of them and not the best one, at least at this point of time…
Tom commented on July 2nd, 2008

[Embed] tag doesn’t work in Flash. (Flex/FlexSDK only)
Giovambattista Fazioli commented on July 4th, 2008

Hi, I try to install FlashDevelop on my Windows vista utimate 64bit but after some test the application comes in error. The envirorment is very good, but I can’t compile anythink for error, error and error. Now I can’t start FlashDevelop, an error is show while loading…. I remove it from the system :(
I waiting new versione for this bugs fix…
Bye
Giovambattista Fazioli commented on July 4th, 2008

I forgot… I have install FlashDevelop 3.0.0 beta 7… I wrong?
bartek drozdz commented on July 4th, 2008

@Skitsanos I do not know Flex that much, but this is where I first saw the [Embed] tag, that is why I called it “Flex style” :)

@Giovambattista I think the best place to look for a solution to your problems is the FlashDevelop forum – it is here.
gropapa commented on July 28th, 2008

hi there,
embed doesn”t work in flash you are right.
On the other side, saying that it is as easy to develop with flex sdk/flashDevelop as developing with flash IDE/flash develop for example is defenitly wrong!
How can you do a gotoAndPlay(labelName) if you don t have any library with movieClips stored in it…
bartek drozdz commented on July 29th, 2008

@gropapa you are right. Developing on the timeline may seem faster and easier then using only code. However, most of the examples on this blog feature heavily scripted solutions – like 3d. In that case you can’t use the timeline anyway. And this is where the Flashdevelop/Flex SDK solution seems better/faster/easier to me then the Flash IDE.
gropapa commented on August 13th, 2008

no no i doon’t talk about coding into the timeline, i m just saying that working without flash built symbols may be very difficult for any project… of course if you decide to do a pv3d project with bitmap materials… well i do the same … flashdevelop + flex SDK :)
Kah Fai commented on August 18th, 2008

I’m a newbie for flash development. I’m having a question here, is it possible to do the references on library files such as DLL file? Could it be integrated with 3rd party component such as web camera device and so on? Thanks!
Michael commented on September 3rd, 2008

Any recommendations for Mac OS X Users? Are there any (free) alternatives to Flashdevelop?
Steve commented on August 12th, 2009

Thanks Bartek for the tutorial.
Question:

Where you say:

“Now create a new project with the ‘Actionscript 3 Default Project’ template”

.. do you mean “Empty Project”?

In the “New Project” dialog, in the ActionScript 3 section, that is the only non default type of template.

Otherwise there are ones scuh as Flash IDE Project, AS3 Project, Flex 3 Project, etc.. and the last one is “Empty Project”.

Thanks
Steve commented on August 12th, 2009

By the way, I’m using 3.02 RTM version of FlashDevelop

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Everyday3D is a blog by Bartek Drozdz