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Setting up new laptop for Flex Development
03/19/11 13:51, by alevicki, Categories: Flex , Tags: flashbuilder4, flashdevelop, flex, flexsdk, java, javasdk, laptop Going to take a break from the Google App Engine posts to document setting up my new laptop for Flex/AIR development.
I have a copy of Flash Builder 4 on my desktop, but I don't have any additional licenses for it. because I am unclear on all the rules surrounding if I can install it on my laptop and only use one at a time, I have decided to explore an open source alternative. It appears that FlashDevelop is a viable alternative, so I've decided to give it a shot. It is Windows only, so if you're on a Mac or Linux, you're out of luck.
Installation instructions for FlashDevelop can be found here: http://www.flashdevelop.org/wikidocs/index.php?title=Installation
Note that even though their instructions, and my instructions, include downloading the Flex SDK, it appears that FlashDevelop will download the SDK for you as part of the installation process.
Here are the steps I followed:
- Download and install the IE Flash Player ActiveX control (ActiveX, /me shudders)
- I skipped the SVN & Git download for now
- I haven't installed Java yet, so I grabbed the latest 64-bit Java JDK and installed it
- Java sdk went into c:\dev\sdks\java\ (I had to copy this over, I didn't catch the dialog for doing it in the installer, if it existed)
- Java jre went into c:\apps\java
- I downloaded the Open Source Flex 4.1.0 SDK and unzipped it to c:\dev\sdks\flex\4.1.0
- I downloaded the FlashDevelop 3.3.4 release and installed it to c:\apps\FlashDevelop
After installation, FlashDevelop started up fine. I created a new Flex 4 project, added a Spark Label with Hello World, and built. This is where I encountered my first problem:
Running process: C:\apps\FlashDevelop\Tools\fdbuild\fdbuild.exe "C:\dev\workspaces\FlashDevelop\FirstFlashDevelopProject\FirstFlashDevelopProject.as3proj" -ipc b9d4ab28-7ed8-4f2c-ab61-febf52b9bd08 -compiler "C:\apps\FlashDevelop\Tools\flexsdk" -library "C:\apps\FlashDevelop\Library"
Using the Flex Compiler Shell.
Building FirstFlashDevelopProject
mxmlc -load-config+=obj\FirstFlashDevelopProjectConfig.xml -debug=true -incremental=true -benchmark=false -static-link-runtime-shared-libraries=true -o obj\FirstFlashDevelopProject634362202147913601
Unable to start java.exe: The system cannot find the file specified
Could not compile because the fcsh process could not be started.
Build halted with errors (fcsh).
INITIALIZING: Failed, unable to run compiler
Done(1)
If you come across this, make sure you have the bin directory for Java on your PATH environment variable. If you haven't already, make sure you've got the JAVA_HOME pointing at your JRE or JDK. I also pointed FlashDevelop at the Flex SDK that I had downloaded instead of the version it had downloaded (I don't believe this was related to the error, but I took the opportunity to change it).
After I resolved that issue, the project compiled fine and I was able to view the results in Chrome.
That's all that was needed to get a FlashDevelop project up and running. I will play with the tool more later and write up my impressions of it. Hopefully it turns out to be a good Open Source alternative to Flash Builder 4.
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