Flex3 SDK without Flex Builder

[Jono-60]

How many of you actually use the visual GUI editor in Flex Builder?

What are my options if I cannot afford Builder?

Can anyone recommend a text editor which has syntax highlighting for Flex?
Also it would be cool to set up the editor to compile and output the app as
well. Can this be done on something like Editplus?

[ntsiii]

Google this, there are some options.

I use FB, never the Designer, but I like the compiler and debugger and editor and project managment.

Tracy

[Adam Boas]

Flex Builder, at the price, is complete rubish. Even on a fast machine the
compiler is slow to provide warnings and feedback, the code completion is
ameturish and the visual editor is virtually useless if you are using
internationalization. Top that off with not having any code formatting tool and
refactoring support which is virtually useless and you start wondering what the
big price tag is actually paying for.

Now that I have gotten that rat out of my system I feel much better. Work pays
for my Flex Builder license so that is what I am using right now but check this
out: [url]http://www.osflash.org/mxmleditor[/url] Hard to imagine how it could be wors
than flex builder.

[camfieldaj]

Sorry, I have to disagree. I've done two projects with out the IDE and one much
larger one with and the one with was much easier to design and test and get
into production. Compared to other IDE's on the market, FB is not unreasonable
in price. As far as performance goes, maybe you want to add some RAM to your
develop machine. And while the company I work for has also purchased FB for me,
I'm ordering a personal copy to use to do some contract projects. I'll cover
the cost of FB in under a month.

Later,

Andy C.(never #)

[mab_bond]

Jono you could use Ant to create scripts for compiling and deploying your flex apps.

[Mike J. Potter]

I don't know if you're a student or not, but Flex Builder is available free to students.

[url]http://www.flexregistration.com/[/url]

Mike

[slaingod]

FB does have a lot to offer, but it is a hog, and does have a bunch of issues.
Design mode is actually pretty helpful for doing pixel tweaking, etc., or
working with states. One issue is that embedding assets(images/swf) tend not to
appear, so it is best to leave them unembedded until the design is solidified.
The style editor is also pretty cool.

[Jono-60]

If only I was still a student!

At the moment I dont see designing in flex much different to HTML/CSS in a
text editor.

Im going to have a look at Ant, sound interesting. I also use Vim as a text
editor, does anyone know how to set up compiling and running from there?

[Ansury]

FB isn't perfect but I'd never bother doing a Flex project without it. It has
flaws but they're by far outweighed by the benefits IMO. I just went and
purchased it on my own (once 3 came out)... it's not THAT expensive. I think
alot of people are just babies about paying for things like this nowadays
because Java has spoiled everyone with it's free stuff. There may be a decent
"free" Flex Builder alternative at some point, but it's not trivial stuff, I
wouldn't count on one too soon.

My biggest complaint is that Adobe really needs to start putting out patches
or updated versions more often for bugfixes or feature enhancements, instead of
waiting for the next major release for most of this stuff. There's enough
important "deferred" bugfixes and features in their bug database (for Flex and
FB both) that it kinda damages the value you're getting for your money.

Keep in mind, when criticising Flex Builder, that it is built using Eclipse...
which has it's own problems and is probably the root source of many of FB's.
(Memory usage esp.)

[Adam Boas]

I agree that working with Flex builder, with all of it's flaws, is far easier
than working without it. I am a J2EE developer and I guess I am one of those
people you think are Spoiled by having access to quality, free tools. It
is interesting to me that you think that the better model is to pay for a
feature poor IDE with an incredibly slow patch/release cycle rather than get
free an IDE which rapidly produces bugfixes and new releases. Can you provide a
credible argument for why this is a better model?

I am not bothered by the FB memory footprint, I am bothered by the compiler
which is slow and generally takes far longer than is reasonable to report
errors, and sometimes doesn't report compile errors at all if there are other
existing ones. It also seems like sheer laziness that Adobe didn't port the
existing Eclipse code formatting tool and include testing and refactoring
tools. In my opinion these are core IDE components, not optional.

[Ansury]

Well I'm a J2EE developer too (a spoiled one!), but my main point wasn't that non-free crappy software is "better" than free quality software... The point was that FB is all we have at the moment.