How time flies..

Gosh how time disappears flies. It's 2010 and guess what? This site ain't getting much hits anymore. Well, I guess simply because of lack of updates. Don't worry... I will still be here not. Kinda playing on with Flash Develop nowadays. In case you guys have no idea what it is look.... here at www.flashdevelop.org

It's a free AS3 programming interface which works rather well for programmers. Note the words 'free AS3 programming interface'. This simple means you are not getting those drawing tools like you get in normal Adobe Flash Pro and stuffs like that. Well Flash Develop don't even have a timeline for you to look at. It's all in the mind... you need to plan it out and stare real hard at the screen to actually visualised something and they not to develop tumor. What good is it anyway without those nice drawing and timeline? It's for the programmers... not designers. You get to compile stuffs written in pure actionscript. For a better understanding of what it is, here is a screenshot...





You still get a compiled .swf as the final output just that you need more understanding in AS3 when doing it in Flash Develop than in Abode Flash Pro itself. For starters... remember how you use 'trace("Hello World!");' in the timeline to output in the debug window? No? What do you mean you don't remember?
... and how you conviniently use the 'this' to refer to the whatever you are writing the script to target in... well you need to specify if clearly and import, extends... full blown programming in Flash Develop. What I am trying to say is you pretty much needs to import the libraries and stuffs to use it unlike in Adobe Flash Pro where you are spoonfed with the basic libraries without lifting even a single finger.. well not really actually. Flash Develop just don't work out of the download package itself. You need to get the FREE Downloadable Flex SDK from Adobe and point to it in Flash Develop under Tools->Program Settings. (At current time of writing it's Flex SDK 3.5) Screenshot as below...





Once all that is up, you are ready to go... except you can't run in debug unless you download the Adobe Flash Debug Player or something like that from Adobe yet again FREE...

So basically three stuffs to get going

- Flash Develop - FREE
- Flex SDK - FREE
- Adobe Flash Debug Player - FREE
- Brain - FREE

After that, just go ahead and google all the tutorials for Flash Develop. Yeah go on... go on.. what do you mean I am supposed to write one? And I am supposed to convince you to use it too? ... grrrrr