Image by Robert S. Donovan.
When working with other Flash developers, I am sometimes surprised when they are not aware of some dev tools that I consider essential. I thought it would be useful to list out the tools that I use everyday as a Flash Developer. All of these tools are free and cross-platform unless otherwise stated. None of this will be news to the seasoned Flash devs, but some will find it useful. Let me know in the comments if I’ve missed anything.
Applications
Desktop apps and browser plugins.
- Firebug. This firefox plugin lets you view a HTML page’s elements load in realtime, among other things. Great for debugging dynamic data loading into a SWF. Essential for any web developer.
- Flash Tracer. Firefox plugin to view your SWF traces in the browser. Invaluable.
- MAMP (Mac) and WAMP (PC). MAMP is a one-click install personal webserver for the Mac. WAMP is the same for Windows. Useful for debugging load timing issues on your own box, especially when combined with a web-proxy throttler.
- Charles and ServiceCapture. These web-proxies allow you to view your SWF’s dynamic data loads in realtime. They also offer throttling, which lets you simulate slow web connection speeds (both are not free).
- IETester (PC). Allows you to run IE8, IE7 IE 6 and IE5.5 on Windows 7, Vista and XP. Good for debugging IE6 weirdness.
- Flash Builder. Everyone has their own favorite ActionScript editor, and this is mine. If you are still coding in the Flash Actions panel, now is the time to stop – you won’t regret it! Flash Builder is an Adobe product so you know it’s going to be well maintained. As a bonus it uses the industry standard Eclipse UI, so the shortcuts you learn with it can be transferred over if you choose to develop in some other programming language later (not free).
- Versions (Mac) and Tortoise SVN (PC). Source control is not necessary for smaller projects, but if you value your dev time and want to be able to keep multiple versions of your code available, it is a must. Versions (not free) is the nicest SVN client ever, and Tortoise is the most popular Windows SVN client.
- Free Ruler(Mac) and JR Screen Ruler (PC). These little apps allow you to measure pixels on the screen without having to do a screen grab.
- Pathfinder (Mac). A Finder replacement that is hard to live without once you are used to it. Includes tabs and a split pane for dragging and dropping. Not really a Flash dev specific tool, but I’ve seen enough people be amazed at seeing tabs in the Finder that it was worth including here (not free).
Flash Libraries
Why re-build the wheel? There are tons of great, free ActionScript libraries made available by generous and talented developers.
- TweenLite. The fastest, most robust and easiest to use Tween library out there.
- Away3D. The best 3D library out there. Although Papervision seems to win all the awards, from my experience Away3D has the most features and has the best documentation. Also has a great user forum.
- casalib. A great collection of robust utility classes. Check here before writing that utility class!
- SWFAddress. Has quickly become an industry standard for building flash sites that support deep-linking. Handles lots of gnarly browser specific issues so you don’t have to. Built on SWFObject which is so useful I didn’t even list it here 😉
- Hi-ReS! Stats. A very handy little class to show when your SWF framerate is choking.
- BIT-101 MinimalComps. A set of ActionScript-only UI components for use in non-Flex projects. Very easy to use and small in filesize. The code is also worth looking at to see how to build a super simple component framework.
- as3corelib. A collection of utility classes by Adobe for handling encoding and serialization among other things.
Bookmarks
To round out this list, here are 3 webpages that I am always hitting:
- ActionScript 3.0 Language Reference. Why memorize stuff when you can look it up? Flash Player 10 version is here.
- Flash Player Version Test. When your client wants to know why your awesome site looks like a grey box on their crappy PC, send them here first.
- BrowserLab. A great free resource from Adobe to test your site on multiple browsers/OSs.
Latest Tweets
Great list of resources, thanks!
Nice list. But let me kick of the ‘my tool is better then yours’ discussion by stating that Flash Builder is the cheap alternative to the tool you’d probably like even more, FDT. Although it sucks really bad the minimal version is quite limited, and you’ll need to pay some serious cash for a Enterprise edition (for the Debugger, Rename Refactoring and Move Refactoring, eg: the stuff that makes it stand out).
worth mentioning Httpfox plugin for Firefox for monitoring http traffic
you forgot to mention flashdevelop is, better than flash builder.
Didn’t know the casalib.
Seems to be very useful classes in there ! Thanks for sharing.
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In an effort to try and get a lot of the classes under one roof, I wrote a quick SVN aggregator that pulls in popular AS classes and ties them into a nice, neat package when you’re starting a project.
http://toolbox.protohq.com/underware/
Great list, I’d add DeMonster Debugger to it (I’ve got nothing to do with it but its a great, browser-agnostic tool): http://www.monsterdebugger.com/
There’s a js utility called swffit that is very useful to specify a minimum size for SWFObject.
http://swffit.millermedeiros.com/
Personally i just open flashlog.txt in dreamweaver… but I’ve seen some people use Thunderbolt, it’s like flashtracer except that it’s an AIR app.
http://code.google.com/p/flash-thunderbolt/
lcs is a library very useful for communication between two swf files.
http://code.google.com/p/flashlcs/
Nice. I used ForkLift as a Finder replacement a while back. Didn’t like so much. But PathFinder looks really useful. Just installed the trial. If it’s as good as it seems, worth the money.
Great list. I’ll have to look up some of the tools I’m not using.
I’m using git instead of svn so git gui works great if you’re willing to make the jump. I also used to use JRuler on PC, but use Pixus now – it’s an AIR app but lets you measure rectangles and has guidelines that can be used to figure out if something is not centered.
Haven’t talked in a while – hope things are going well for you and your family.
[…] of my favorite Action Script-ers to follow, Felix Turner of AirTight Interactive, recently posted about all of the applications, plugins and resources he uses for Flash […]
Nice checklist . Having a lot of problems with “Charles” on Mac though , been “trying” to use it for some time. My colleague on PC is loving it.
flash switcher is also helpful.
[…] dem Artikel von airtightinteractive und den dazugehörigen Kommetaren werden die wichtigsten Tools […]
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I second FDT as the best editor around (although 599 euro is steep!). I’ll have to check out Pathfinder. Thanks for sharing your list.
I’d recommend Flashbug over FlashTracer
http://blog.coursevector.com/flashbug
Hey, really appreciate you taking the time to keep up your blog – I always learn something here.
Wondering if you’ve seen this and what you think about it? Gaia flash framework. I haven’t used on a project yet but it looks like it could be handy. http://www.gaiaflashframework.com/
Nice list. I use a couple of more, apart from your list:
1. as3ds – several data structure implementation to be used with your as3 projects
2. Demonster Debugger – A must have for debugging as3 apps
3. FlashDevelop to read and explore SharedObjects structure and data
4. flexprettyprint – a plugin for flex builder to format as3/mxml source files
5. Launchy – for windows, to launch any application on its path
6. DittoCP – for clipboard management on windows
7. ANT/MAVEN/CruiseControl/Hudson … these are other tooling not specific to as3 but useful