Pimp My Eclipse – Part 3
Update: Last night I uploaded a slightly wrong version. Please redownload and install this to be sure things work smoothly. Sorry about that.
So I have now developed a new plugin project that contains the previous two that I have blogged about. Keeping everything I’m doing in a single plugin project makes it a lot easier to keep track of and update. I have also added a new feature. The CFEclipse plugin contains a button to launch a color picker. This works fairly well but I wanted one that would format the color in the octal format that ActionScript expects. Their plugin also doesn’t properly position the cursor after insertion. Check out the screenshot below to see the new toolbar containing Flash Test, Insert Snippet, and Insert Color.
To install the plugin, download the ZIP file and extract the contents into your Eclipse 3.4 installation. Make sure you remove the previous plugins that may have installed from me. You can go into the Eclipse preferences and add or modify the keyboard shortcuts for these items.
I’m about to start working on turning my Project Builder AIR application into an Eclipse plugin. This will make things smooth. Let me know if you have other ideas for the plugin.
Lee
How’d you get it all Flexed out? I installed the Flex plugin 60day trial, but I’m still looking at how to use it, or enable it…I should go read the docs.
Great idea to wrap these all into one plugin.
One request I have for your project builder (as well as you FlasTest plugin) is the ability to choose Flash CS3 and CS4. I’ve yet to convince my boss to upgrade to CS4, and while I have developed a workflow that publishes AS 3.0 projects directly from Flex (including Flash Assets) I’m always a fan of trying something new to see what works best.
I would love an option to open the current file in the finder.
Joshua: I use a plugin called EasyExplorer for that. I don’t have the link handy but you can google it.
Nice work Lee.
As far as additions go, I’m thinking something along the lines of when you create say a MovieClip class in Flex, it gives you the option to automatically create the corresponding MovieClip in your FLA library with correct linkage…thoughts?
http://monkey-for-flex.googlecode.com/files/add-color.js
This script create the flex builder color picker and insert selected color to editor. But it not work in mxml editor(
I can’t get this to work at all.
I’ve installed many eclipse plugins before but this just doesn’t show up anywhere. I extracted the folder “TheFlashBlog_1.0.0″ to the eclipse/plugins folder and restarted Eclipse but I can’t find any trace of it in Eclipse.
@Torbern are you using 3.4.1?
Yes, 3.4.1
Do I need the CFEclipse plug-in aswell ?
Yeah??? is there a problem with using 3.4.1? If so I need to start over
Anyone else new to eclipse, here’s one blog resource that helped point me in the direction of how to use eclipse: http://www.jakehilton.com/?q=node/27
Although jake uses the SDK instead of Builder plug-in, simply knowing where to find the Flex Development perspective helped me.
Hi Lee,
I belive it could be nice to see a basic tutorial on developing an Eclipse plug-in. Thanks.
@Torben
Move the FOLDER ‘TheFlashBlog_1.0.0′ into the eclipse/plugins directory, not just the contents of ‘TheFlashBlog_1.0.0′. Hope that solves it.
flashape: EasyExplore doesn’t seem to work on OSX.
How’d you remove some of the toolbar icons? After installing the plugin, I now have alot that I don’t want…
The culprits: http://www.leefernandes.com/share/howtoremove.jpg
@ myself
Right click on a toolbar and then click “Customize Perspective…”. Then click on the Commands tab. This tab contains all of the toolbars that showup in your current perspective (i.e., CFEclipse), and you can check/uncheck to your hearts content. However, you may be tempted to remove the Search toolbar, but don’t do it. If you do some of the search functions are disabled.
http://techfeed.net/blog/index.cfm/2007/5/22/CFEclipse-Tip-Clean-up-toolbars
@Torben I had the same problem and installing CFEclipse fixed it.
@Mathew No 3.4.1 is the one you want.
@Torben Yes you need to install CFEclipse first in order for the snippets to work.
Anyone know of a way to separate variables, and functions in the Outline view?
Please correct me if I’m wrong, but I can’t install flex plugin in 3.4 on a PC?
Anyway, I got this working in 3.3.2 with flex 3.0.2 after some time. In XP the flex plugin installs in the program files directory, it has an eclipse folder inside it, you need to install the plugin there and not in the eclipse directory.
I’m all into jumping into eclipse, and have also moved onto setting up a local SVN, for eclipse ‘Subversive’.
Paploo explains how to setup the local SVN on OSX here, using terminal, and just a few commands:
http://blog.paploo.net/2007/10/how-to-manage-your-own-subversion.html
Currently using Eclipse 3.4.1. with the flex builder plugin and lee’s plugin didnt work for me.
Is CFE required for lee’s plugin to work? I’m not interested in the snippets editor so I dont want to install that whole plugin just to get lee’s additions to work.
@substance Yes you probably have to have CFEclipse installed in order for the plugin set to work. The CFEclipse plugin isn’t that big so having it installed shouldn’t be a big deal.
[...] ?????The Flash Blog????????? New tutorial on customizing Flex Builder More Snip Tree View features! FlashTest Eclipse Plugin Alpha Pimp My Eclipse – Part 1 Pimp My Eclipse – Part 2 Pimp My Eclipse – Part 3 [...]
I am definitely interested in a solution that will work with Flex Builder 3 in conjunction with Flash CS3.
The AIR app doesn’t work for me since it assumes I have CS4 installed, which I don’t. And I also can’t get your plugin to show up since I’m not using Eclipse 3.4.
CS3 support please.
an idea for the project builder plugin:
a way to automatically include/exclude classes (or manage them with a wysiwyg / checkboxes) and generate the exclude xml files for the .fla’s
this would be extremely helpful when working with frameworks and several swf files, this way not whole the framework would be compiled in every swf file (thus bringing the size down)
If you can release the source, I will apreciate it.
Thanks
great plugin.
it would be even greater if snippets worked also in mxml.
Awesome idea for a plugin! Unfortunately I cannot get it working in Eclipse 3.4.1 with CFEclipse (CFEclipse including CFUnit and Frameworks 1.3.1.6). What am I missing?
I have placed the “TheFlashBlog_1.0.0″ folder in the plugins/. folder in my eclipse installation, a folder with a bunch of jar files.
I hope I’ve simply placed something in the wrong place or misconfigured CFEclipse somehow.
Thanks !
It works with CS3. It simply launches the .fla of whichever Flash version I have open.
first…your tutorials are really helping me and inspiring me to look toward more AS3 development and Flex looks to be the right editor for this designer with the pimpization you’ve got setup.
The issue I have is I see theflashblog snippets in the eclipse IDE under (customize perspective> commands) but am not seeing them in the Flex IDE. Could you or anyone be able to enlighten me as to why this might be.
I’m experiencing something odd with eclipse. My imports on a document class are randomly reverting back to earlier imports, while I’m working on the class. Anyone know a good eclipse forum community?
Import issue resolved. Preferences >Flex >Editor >Actionscript >uncheck manage imports. Eclipse will randomly remove imports that it can’t find the source library for, which in my case are set in the Flash IDE.
Anyone know where to point eclipse to import the Flash CS4 source libraries?
Adding snippets is great. Probably worth noting that there are some handy keyboard short-cuts already included that will help editing speed too. My favourites for quicker than traditional cut/copy/paste of lines…
Place the insertion point on a line, or select some lines, then:
CMD-D : Delete the line(s)
Option-UpArrow : move the line(s) up by one line
Option-DownArrow : move the line(s) down by one line
CMD-Option-UpArrow : Duplicate the line(s) inserting above
CMD-Option-DownArrow : Duplicate the line(s) inserting below
I can only get the snippets to work while editing .as files… not .mxml files. Any idea how I can activate the snippets for both?
Thanks!
Hi,
I am very new to the Flex development.
1 > I have with me installed with Myeclipse 6.0 and tomcat 6.0
2 > Also i configured the server info of tomat 6.0 under Myeclipse-> ference->myeclipse-> servers.
3 > Installed with FlexBuilder 3 ( Eclipse plugin). While installing, it ask for to select eclipse root folder which must contain subfolder called “configuaration”. I select the eclipse folder under myeclipse to continue with the instalation
4> After succesful installation of FlexBuilder, i created a flex project with Application server as “J2ee”.
5 > Now I have only 1 simple mxml file in the newly created project.
After all these if i tried to run from “Run->RunAs->FlexApplication” getting
Request Resourse is not available error
It would be great if some one help me out on this.
Hi folks!
@lee
My first post I think… so first of all.. Thanks for all, your tutorials are a bless, a real benediction.
@lee and whoever who did succeed!!
Referencing to your first post:
” How’d you get it all Flexed out? I installed the Flex plugin 60day trial,but I’m still looking at how to use it, or enable it…I should go read the docs.”
2 days after I’m still googlein’ it!! which docs did you read??
I seem to be in the same camp as the others who can’t get TheFlashBlog plugin to work. I did notice that it doesn’t contain a JAR, unlike every other plugin in the plugins directory. Is this required for it to show up?
I am using Flex Builder Gumbo (MAX Preview), which is based on Eclipse 3.4.0 and have CFEclipse installed. Is there something specific to 3.4.1 with this?
Would love to be able to enable this!
So, is someone willing to release their snippets? or is there some snipEX server allready?
Lee this plugin don’t work with Flex Builder 3? I’ve CFEclipse installed but, when i put the TheFlashBlog_1.0.0 in Flex Builder plugins folder and run Flex Builder, the icons aren’t available for me in buttons bar nor in perspective custom window.
hey Lee, just today the ‘Test in Flash’ tool stopped working for me. It says, “the chosen operation is not available at this time”. Any idea what that might mean?
Hello Lee I’m your fan! Is it possible to have a version that works with Flex Builder 3 in the future? A lot of people use just FB3.
Thanks for all your tutorials!