ActionScript code editors.

An article by Kuba    13 Comments

[digg-me]There are many ActionScript code editors but which one is the best? We will talk about: Adobe Flex Builder 3, Flash Develop, Se|py ActionScript editor, TextMate and JEdit.

When I was using PC, my main OS was Windows I was writing my ActionScript in Flash Develop it was really great and I loved it, for Flex and Air development I was using the Adobe Flex Builder 3 it’s also a great code editor but I don’t like the Eclipse project structure. About year ago I switched to mac, the only think I didn’t like about mac was the lack of good ActionScript code editor. Here is the quick overview of the IDE’s I have tried:


Adobe Flex Builder 3





Flex Builder is built on top of Eclipse as an open-source IDE it contains editors that allow you to edit MXML, ActionScript 3.0, and CSS code. Editors are the essence of the workbench and views, and the perspectives in which they are contained support their functionality.

Main Features:

• code hinting
• code completion
• real-time error check
• code navigation
• code formatting

Flex Builder 3 supports: windows, mac OS X and Linux.
Price: $699


It also has 60 day free trial version, and its FREE for students and unemployed developers, for more info read this.


Flash Develop





FlashDevelop is a free and open source (MIT license) code editor, it’s offering advanced ActionScript coding support:

• Supports three languages: ActionScript 2, ActionScript 3 & MXML and HaXe.
• Brilliant Actionscript Code Completion (IntelliSense) and code generators.
• Code completion for XML, MXML and HTML
• Code navigation (jump to declaration), just pressing F4/Shift-F4.
• Easy integration with Flash and command line compilers, just using Ctrl+Enter to compile.
• Integrated Project Manager to handle all the project assets, properties and files.
• Smart project templates to quickly get started.
• Instant swf building with MTASC or MXMLC using custom comment tag @mtasc/@mxmlc.
• Easy to use Context API search.
• Customized GUI for AS2API & ASDocs documentation generators.

FlashDevelop supports only windows :(
Price: Free


Se|py ActionScript editor





SE|PY is a FREE ActionScript editor for Macromedia Flash files from sephiroth.it

Main Features:

• Code folding, code highlighting
• Auto Completion for default flash functions
• Auto Completion with the user added functions
• View documents in tab mode
• Zoom
• Panel with all inserted functions for all active documents
• Flush Support (Flush, compile, test movie, view output)
• Print out and save html document from your .as files
• Smart Snippet panel, todo panel, file panel, flash api panel
• Class explorer
• Lines Bookmarks
• Flash project file integration
• Possibility to define classpaths (add the autocompletion)
• advanced clipBoard management
• XML reader (dom and xpath query)
• Flash Help panel integration
• Automatic JavaDoc creation from methods
• Collapse/expand javadocs comments
• Syntax checker and complier with MTASC
• Integrated SharedObject reader
• Integrated CVS and SVN
• and more…

Se|py supports windows and mac but the mac version isn’t stable and it has a lot of bugs.
Price: Free


TextMate





TextMate brings Apple’s approach to operating systems into the world of text editors. By bridging UNIX underpinnings and GUI, TextMate cherry-picks the best of both worlds to the benefit of expert scripters and novice users alike.This editor has very poor support for ActionScript only color hinting and snippet’s, there is no auto completion engine or something like this. But for a basics purpus it’s great.

TextMate supports only mac OS X
Price: ?48.75 (it has 30 day trial version)


jEdit





jEdit is a mature programmer’s text editor with hundreds (counting the time developing plugins) of person-years of development behind it.

Main Features:

• Built-in macro language; extensible plugin architecture. Dozens of macros and plugins available.
• Plugins can be downloaded and installed from within jEdit using the “plugin manager” feature.
• Auto indent, and syntax highlighting for more than 130 languages.
• Supports a large number of character encodings including UTF8 and Unicode.
• Folding for selectively hiding regions of text.
• Word wrap.
• Highly configurable and customizable.
• Every other feature, both basic and advanced, you would expect to find in a text editor.

JEdit doesn’t have native support for ActionScript, but there are some plugins to fix that you can find great tutorial on how to manage this here. I had some trouble with it but you can try it out, wish you luck!

JEdit supports Mac OS X, OS/2, Unix, VMS and Windows (It’s written in Java)
Price: Free

Does are the code editors I have used/tested I know there are also other like: FDT (the eclipse plugin), Aptana, Intellij IDEA or Spekt but I haven’t tried does out :) So after this code editor research I stayed with the FlashDevelop + Parallels desktop for ActionScript and Flex Builder for Flex/Air.

I hope you like it, tell me what you think!

Kuba.