New AIR Application for Flash Debugging
When I was at the Stockholm event last week I met up with Carl Calderon who showed me a cool AIR application that enables enhanced logging for AIR and Flash applications. The application is named Arthropod allows you to color-code your log messages for easy viewing. All you need to do is add their debug class to your project and use the log method instead of the usual trace command. This will be particularly useful for AIR projects created in the Flash CS3 as the trace command doesn’t work unless in debug mode.
Lee
Wow Great! Just what I need.
Any info about the spam filter and insecure, what they do?
This is going to be SO helpful!
Thanks a lot for sharing this!
~Rain
I was just going to look for something like that today! Thanks a lot. Already installed it and it seems to work fine.
This seems very useful, definitely giving it a try. Great find
Yeah, way cool you blogged about Carl’s app. It’s really nice and it was awesome to talk to you. See you guys in brighton on Flash on the Beach!
Fantastic! I was trying to write something like this myself due to Trace not working in Flash AIR apps. Glad someone beat me to it.
For tracing there is REDbug as well, which seems to be more complete, I haven’t tested it tho, it’s on my list of “TODO’s” since I found out about it.
Would it make sense to be able to pass a string which describes what you tracing as well or replacing the color?
This Flex app could then try and add the output to a TextArea of the same name, and if it is null, catch it, create a new Tab with the same label, create a TextArea with the instance name and then add the text to it.
This would work very much like Logger but then give infinite tabs for importance or any other specifics you want the output.
It would also make sense to not only distribute this as an AIR app but also wrap it up and as plugin for FB?
Thanks for all your thoughts and sudgestions for the 1.0 version.
I will add more info to the site as soon as I can. All your comments have been very useful and most of them will be included in the next version.
I also want to thank Lee for the post about Arthropod.
Carl
[...] there was not more fanfare made of this recently, as it was just released and got a mention on The Flash Blog. Arthropod allows you to use a simple bundled class to write trace statements to the running AIR [...]
[...] picked this one up from Lee Brimelow’s blog. It’s basically a glorified trace app, but there are times when you’re working with [...]
hey! you guys out there who uses arthropod. Carls is holding a open design competition for arthropod. check it out at ..
http://arthropod.stopp.se/
so start photoshoppping and flashing cool transitions.
the app is acutallly really appriciated when debugging a flash app/site. It’s altso making its mark on our workflow. Im kinda trying to spread it’s usage to all my friends. It’s way a “killler app” to trace AIR-applications or, to trace sites to see bugs.
I find it quite usefull when using SWFobjects and flashvars what not recieved well in version 2.0 beta air vs. 1.5
[...] (from Lee Brimelow’s blog) The application is named Arthropod allows you to color-code your log messages for easy viewing. [...]
This looks cool, but flash tracer seems to be a better solution overall.
Hi Lee,
I prefer using alcon: http://osflash.org/projects/alcon
an air version will be released soon.
I prefer QLog: http://splink.org/?p=25
Hallo,
maybe anyone will find it useful:
http://www.mvdllogger.sternschleuder.de/
It is a logger with multiple views and can be extended with other views.
I’ve made it, because their some cool filter and view features. Current installed views (output view, textfield view, air view)…
bye
Markus
I have been using Carl’s Arthropod for a while now, however it bugged me that it didn’t work like Flash’s native Trace() function.
I took the liberty of modifying the Debug class to work like the Trace() function with some added functionality. You can also see the class that is generating the log message.
To use, simply call the log/error/warning method as you normally would, but use different arguments.
Debug.log( this, “Say you wanted to see the x value of this clip.”, “x=”, this.x );
The first argument is always the reserved word ‘this’ which helps the Debug class determine the class making the log() call.
The other arguments are whatever you want to trace. You can use an unlimited number or arguments. The class will put a space between each argument just like Flash’s trace function.
The only drawback to this is that you cannot dynamically change the color of the message text. This has to be set in the Debug class. Sure, you could make some static variables, or add another argument, however I didn’t need the functionality and the options seemed inconvenient.
Have fun!
Here is the modified class: http://pastebin.com/fd5973d5
Cool tool! just tried out, I am running AsUnit through air application (adl.exe), however, it only printed first log and never came back, even I put two Debug.log(xxx) together, Arthropod always print first one, never get second one, any clue?
[...] (from Lee Brimelow’s blog) The application is named Arthropod allows you to color-code your log messages for easy viewing. [...]
This app looks pretty cool. If you do want to use trace AND an air app for debugging, please have a look at the app I just wrote. Would like to hear your opinion! http://bit.ly/aOuXQh