Help me find a good AS3 IDE On The Mac

Posted on October 28, 2010 by 8bitjeff

For the last three years I was very happy using the incredible Flash Develop via Parallels and XP on my Mac. I would use Flash CS3 in OSX to create and edit assets and then tie the whole project together with FlashDevelop in XP. Although Flash Develop is free, I did donate do them and will do so again if I can get it to solve my current problem.

You see, Parallels has become a monster on my system. When it is not running, my Mac works fine, when it is running, I can’t do anything on the Mac and XP is pretty slow. It seems like this happens right about the time of a Parallels update (they have a new version I can upgrade to right now). I’m not blaming them, but I assume that maybe Paralleles VMs get bloated and unusable after 9 months (about the Parallels version release cycle). Flash Develop in Parallels also started to have problems with my build folders being shared between the Mac and Windows which is a huge pain in the ass. For the final project I did with Flash Develop I had to have an SVN checkout folder + a local Flash Develop project folder plus a Mac project folder. Keeping all three in-sync was a huge pain in the ass.

A few weeks back I purchased Flash CS5 in OSX and attempted to use it’s Project Panel to build an application. It works ok, but it lacking some of the more refined features of Flash Develop – understanding my package structure completely, showing my Static constants as I type and other various little details.

I figured that I should try out Flash Builder and see it if can do everything I want. I Have two projects that I am currently building with Flash Builder and I am not really getting into it. For one, it has the same problems as the Flash IDE project panel – not recognizing my project structure completely and not showing static constants in the current class, but also projects don’t seem to be as portable as Flash Develop projects. There certainly are some nice features, but it is still Eclipse and I really dislike the interface and especially the little things like the atrocious “Find and Replace” functions.

I did test FDT for a couple days (4 months ago) but it still is Eclipse based and I want to stay away from that as much as possible. If anyone has used it for a lot of AS3 and can give it a good word I will test it again.

There are some other options put there: IntelliJ looks promising, but I will need time to figure out the build process and AS3 integration.

What I would like is this: Flash Develop on the Mac, and I am willing to pay for it. That might mean I have to upgrade to the latest Parallels, change to a Windows 7 VM and try again. Has anyone out there use Parallels in this manner and been able to share project folders seamlessly? If so, I will try it.

What other good solutions are there? I am willing to pay, so I don’t need free tools, I just need good ones.

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  • http://www.plasticsturgeon.com Plastic Sturgeon

    There are two good mac IDE’s for Actionscript:
    Flash Builder
    IntelliJ Idea

    • http://www.8bitrocket.com 8bitjeff

      You are right (FDT is great too).
      What I need is to watch someone who knows how to really kick-ass in an IDE to understand what I don’t know. For example, there are a whole bunch of short-cut keys in FB that ijust don’t know. These would certainly help with code completion, etc.

      • Jonathan

        Watch John Lindquists videos; he really knows his way around an IDE. As for shortcuts, you can just define them once you know what functions are available to you, eclipse etc are pretty flexible like that. http://johnlindquist.com/

  • Rich

    This isn’t really a full AS3 solution but have you looked into Textmate? It has a great AS3 bundle and can be very customizable to fit your needs… well most of it of course.

  • http://viekoslavia.com Vieko Franetovic

    Have considered dual booting? If you are like me and prefer to stick to MacOS X, try making a master Parallels’ VM with a fresh copy of Windows 7 and your tools. Save a fresh copy for the future. When Windows 7 gets unusable, toss the old one and start a new fresh copy. Use Dropbox between environments to keep your files separate and voilà! The same great feeling without the fat :) thoughts?

  • http://twitter.com/stray_and_ruby stray

    I’d second TextMate for AS3. If you combine it with ProjectSprouts for code / test generation and compiling, it’s really powerful. It’s also an absolutely awesome text editor.

    The AS3 bundle gives you source code completion (alt-esc) and you can quickly expand the commands and snippets to fit your own style.

    I completely understand your aversion to Eclipse and dependent editors – I totally loathe the interface and have also tried FDT without much joy.

    For me, IntelliJ was still a bit eclipsey, but I know a lot of people rate it. I’d steer clear of Flash Builder and see how IntelliJ and TextMate/Sprouts suit you.

    • http://www.8bitrocket.com 8bitjeff

      TheTextMate combo sounds like a great system. Thanks for the tip. I never was able to figure out what the right plug-ins where to do what you have described. I do now.

  • http://twitter.com/brunofonzi Bruno Fonzi

    I have to say FDT4, but I work for Powerflasher, so I am obviously biased ;)

    Check out the latest 4.0 release and please let me know.
    We have a Getting Started guide on http://fdt.powerflasher.com/docs

    You can find also a great list of community tutorials here http://fdt.powerflasher.com/docs/Main_Page#Community_Resources

    • http://www.8bitrocket.com 8bitjeff

      I definitely are going to give this one another chance.

  • Dennis Simon

    RASE (http://www.realaxy.com) looks really promising!

    • http://www.8bitrocket.com 8bitjeff

      I’m going to test this out now.

  • JohnO

    I’m a huge fan of FDT on Mac for working on pure AS3 projects, projects that leverage Flash Pro SWC assets, and Flash Pro projects. I used to use FlashDevelop when back on Windows, but I never liked the FD in VMWare approach. I know many people like TextMate. I have it and used it for quite some time, but it still lacks (in my opinion) to FDT.

    As for Flash Builder, I think it’s a great IDE if you are doing Flex or pure AS3 projects but FB blows with combined with Flash Pro. Combine SourceMate and Flex Formatter plugins with Flash Builder and only use Flash Pro assets (via swc or swf) and that’s a usable setup. Still FDT works for me the best.

  • http://twitter.com/carlrice Carl Rice

    I used to be a TextMate nut but have since moved to Eclipse. I hated it for all the same reasons but just got used to it. My main drive was to get an editor that worked across a variety of languages with completion (AS3, HTML/CSS/JS, Java, C++, Python) and works the same on Mac/Linux so Eclipse was the obvious choice. InteliJ is great in every department except looks and I just can’t get past it.

  • Anonymous

    yknow, the best solution is probably to just not use a Mac.

    (*burn!*)

    • http://www.8bitrocket.com 8bitjeff

      Touch~!
      Yes, that was my solution when I had CS4 on Windows. I’d dual boot vai Bootcamp into Win 7 and use them together. Now that I only have CS5 on my Mac it is not an option.

      • Anonymous

        oh right, I sorta remember that now. Good luck cheating the system, though. (for obvious reasons, I can’t really help you on this one)

  • Simon

    Greetings, I was in the exact same scenario as you as I tried using FlashDevelop on mac and it ran dog slow, it’s a shame you couldn’t get into FDT or IntelliJ as they are really good IDE’s once you get used to it

    I also wrote a blog entry on my findings with different IDE’s on OSX http://www.simtechmedia.com/blog/2010/10/ide-showdown-intellij-fdt-flashdevelop-2/

    • http://www.8bitrocket.com 8bitjeff

      Simon, thanks for your help.

      I am currently surveying all of the available options (thanks to everyone for their replies today) and will re-look at everything out there. Your blog post will certainly help in that. I have FB installed now and am going to take a deep look at it before I call it quites (I still have 50 days left on my eval). IntelliJ is my next to test. I tried out RASE today and while it is promising, it is still a little under cooked. Also, the project file structure was very convoluted (Flash Develop is the best so far). I have hope that RASE will be the MAC version of Flash Develop some day, so I will keep my eye on it. FTD and TextMate will be my next ones to try out after Intellij.

  • Andygoestohollywood

    come on guys, if you must use a mac use FDT or Flash builder, they aren’t that bad, and actually have a lot more features than Flash Develop.. If you must use FlashDevelop, then buy a PC, they are dirt cheap, i recommend the new Asus EE pc, it’s a dual core netbook
    http://www.amazon.com/Seashell-1215N-PU17-SL-12-1-Inch-Netbook-Silver/dp/B0041G5XII/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=electronics&qid=1288366736&sr=8-1

    • http://www.8bitrocket.com 8bitjeff

      The are both good, you are right. I am looking at them all right now, but FB is what I am currently using. The problem is that I was forced to jump right in an start using it and didn’t have time to understand it 100%. It is growing on me. I hope to test FDT next week. Simon does a good job on his blog of going through the various IDEs.

      • Andygoestohollywood

        ye i was forced onto a mac at my new company,takes a while getting used to Flash Builder, and i still prefer the speed and simplicity of flashDevelop.. FDT has some interesting features like a way to force garbage collection while you’re running swfs, more detailed profiling and even a diagramtic view of your source code class structure, which is awesome.

  • canvasprint

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    I like canvasprint and its the new revaluation of printing.
    http://www.artcreations4u.co.uk

  • http://twitter.com/neurofuzzy Geoff Gaudreault

    I’d recommend switching to VMWare Fusion or VirtualBox. I still use FlashDevelop every day. I didn’t bother with FDT or FlashBuilder because I can’t stand Eclipse-based editors. I’ve not found one that isn’t heavy, bloated and slow.

    Also, if you don’t need SWC library compilation, you could use the old Flash 9 public alpha to create your SWF assets. I use it all the time and it works great for making AS3 UI libraries.

  • http://twitter.com/pixeljuice Jonas Johansson

    RASE looks like it could turn into something great, there is a 30 trial at:
    http://www.realaxy.com/editor/index

  • http://twitter.com/hlarcher Hugo Larcher

    Here’s a review of FDT4 I made which also talks a bit about FlashDevelop, FlashBuilder 4 and IntelliJ9, might help someone: http://hugolarcher.com/?p=255

  • http://twitter.com/hlarcher Hugo Larcher

    Nice article, I was there once, then I found FDT.