So I moved to a Mac when I got my new job in November working at Clearspring and I quickly started missing FlashDevelop as I chugged away in the built-in Actionscript editor in Flash CS3. I've used FlashDevelop for Actionscript coding at home on my PC and have sworn by it, so much so I actually installed Parallels on my Mac but didn't like the work flow it created. And so began my quest to find a Mac equivalent of FlashDevelop. If you are reading this looking for the same thing, let me save you the weeks of searching, it's not out there. At least not for free, but there is hope.

I've read on numerous threads about how people are using Flex Builder for their Actionscript editing and how much better it is for coding/debugging. I started to investigate how easy it was to set things up and came across Ted Patrick's post on "Using Flex Builder for Flash CS3 Coding" and Joshua Bloom's post on "Using Flex Builder to edit and debug Flash Applications." Seemed simple enough, so I recently bit the bullet and bought Flex Builder 3 and must say it was well worth the purchase. If you want to see for yourself, go download the 30-day trial and run through Mike and Joshua's posts on setting it all up. You won't go back to the built-in editor in Flash ever again, and if you do you'll miss your new little friend dearly. Read More »

Pretty exciting news out of Adobe. Flex 4 is beginning active development. I am really excited to see what the next round of solutions for the Flash Platform are going to be, especially after the MAX and FITC sneak peaks of Flash Player 10 "Astro" and Adobe "Thermo." Also with the new ECMAScript 4.0 proposal (ES4 Overview PDF)being targeted for this Fall, about the same time as Flex 4 BETA 1, it will be interesting to see if "Actionscript 4" makes its way into the mix. Only time will tell. Read More »

I converted an AS2 script I found for positioning full-screen, centered flash web sites to AS3. Couple of things changed and there was one instance where I got stumped because of syntax/function differences. Read More »

Flash the District Meet-up Scheduled for October 13, 2007 in Dupont Circle

18 September 2007 — Washington, D.C.

The October Flash the District Meet-up is scheduled for the 13th of October at Cosi in Dupont Circle South. Plans are currently under way to change locations to better facilitate collaborative meetings. More information on that at our next meet-up. Read More »