What’s your Flash/PHP Development Environment like?

August 29th, 2007

I started using Flash at version 4, when I was working at W3.com.ar and I remember also having to fiddle with some Flash 3 banners. When Flash 5 came out and you could do some proper coding, it was all done inside the IDE. Then we discovered the include directive and were using Textpad with most of our code.

Then came SEPY and I got hooked straight-away. Just last year I transitioned to FlashDevelop and have been using that since. I convinced my fellow workmates and now we are all using it.

I knew there were other tools put there, but one that I really wanted to try was FDT. Check out there cool site and view the demos they have.
A couple of months back I won a license at Sydney’s Flash User Group (thanks Chris!) and I have started using it for tests. I currently haven’t fully switched yet, because I find FlashDevelop quite fast and very easy to use compared to FDT. Though FDT has on the fly syntax checking. It means I don’t have to press F7 each time before compiling.

Then talking about my PHP development environment. It was trusty old Textpad through-out all these years. Adding different syntax libraries, macros and all kind of clip extensions. But it was never an IDE. It was missing syntax checking and the famous “intellisense”

Now I have started to move towards Eclipse, and I’ve tried PHPEclipse and PDT. I had troubles with PDT but I didn’t have much time on my hands to see why it wasn’t working as expected. I will try to consolidate my both main languages (Flash and PHP) under one IDE.

My next step is to use them both on a production project. Then I will be able to assess if it’s worth switching from FlashDevelop.

It would be great to here what others are using for their own PHP and Flash development.
Please add a comment below.

Some extra resources:
http://www.blog.lessrain.com/?p=381

Entry Filed under: Development Environment, FDT, Flash, FlashDevelop, PHP, Productivity, Software

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6 Comments Add your own

  • 1. zeflasher&hellip  |  2007-08-29 at 8.47 am

    Hi there…
    I have the same background, started with flash 4, and had the same story. SEPY then Flashdevelop. I didn’t have the chance to try FDT yet.

    For php development I tried couple of IDE. PHPEdit, … but now I’m using PDT ( thx zend :) )

    I have the same deal here too about the IDE. I would like to be able to develop in php and flash in the same editor. So I’m thinking going with eclipse. Moreover then I would be able to switch on linux too ( thx to this post http://www.mikechambers.com/bl.....-and-linux ).
    The only thing that prevent me doing that was because of the development tools…

    C ya

  • 2. Chris&hellip  |  2007-08-29 at 9.29 am

    If you don’t mind paying a little, I think Zend Studio is BY FAR the best PHP IDE. Very user friendly with excellent debugging.

  • 3. Pancho&hellip  |  2007-08-29 at 11.31 pm

    My Flash/PHP Development Environment is still Textpad.
    I have the same problem but with .Net (I’m in the horno). With Java I have found a very cool IDE> Intellij Idea (http://www.jetbrains.com/idea/) with Flex/Flash plugin.

  • 4. Danno&hellip  |  2007-08-30 at 2.44 am

    Thanks for your comments guys.

    @zeflasher: Thanks for the link.

    @Chris: I will give Zend Studio a trial… but I see it’s very pricey at $300. It will need to be very,very good compared against PHPEclipse in order for me to splash out that amount.

    @Pancho: Haha.. you’re in the oven ;-)
    Thanks for that Java IDE.. it looks very promising.

  • 5. James&hellip  |  2007-08-31 at 4.08 pm

    I’ve been using TextMate as the editor for my PHP/Flash projects and have been using Subversion to version control these projects. Textmate is a great editor for lots of languages.

  • 6. Natacha&hellip  |  2007-12-04 at 10.17 am

    I started using Adobe’s Flex Builder when starting work on a Flex 2 application. I was very short of time and couldn’t to spend the time getting Eclipse to work with Flash (I’d had a few Eclipse nightmares on a Java project in the past and could never get into it).

    Since that project I am now using Flex Builder for all Actionscript 3 projects - very nice syntax checking and debugging features.

    I still use Sepy for AS 2 work, though I might check out Flashdevelop.

    I use Visual Studio for all my .net development.

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