FDT Getting Started Guide
Welcome to FDT – the Development Tool for Flash. This short guide will lead you through the installation and will introduce you to some of the highly efficient and time-saving features and the basic structure of the FDT workbench. Further information can be found directly as part of the FDT installation, the forum and features and documentation section of this website.
Installing
FDT includes all necessary packages to start coding and compiling Flash and Flex projects immediately. Simply download the standalone installer, double click it and follow the installation instructions.
1. Choose Install folder: Change the destination folder for your installation of FDT. Mac users without admin rights must change the installation directory as the application directory lacks writing permissions.
2. Choose Install Set: Choose between the Pure, Professional and Enterprise versions of FDT. By default the Enterprise version is selected.
3. Choose Shortcut Folder: Specify the shortcut destination of FDT. For PC users, there is an option to unhide the FDT shortcut for all users.
4. Pre-installation Summary: Configuration details are displayed.
5. Installing...: Shows the progress of the installation.
6. Installation Complete: Congratulations! FDT has been successfully installed. Close the installer by clicking "Done".
FDT Workbench
The perspective “Flash FDT” consists of several panels, also called views, such as Flash Explorer at the top left, the Outline view beneath, the Flash editor or the Task view in the lower part.
The Flash Explorer lets you browse and navigate through all your project files including packages and libraries. You can create, move and delete files within the Flash Explorer easily.
First Project
Right click into the Flash Explorer and to select "New ->New Flash Project” from the context menu. In the appearing wizard enter your project name and confirm with “Finish”. FDT automatically creates a source folder for you and also links several core library SWC files depending on the type of project you selected in the wizard.
The next steps are creating a package and a class. Right click the src folder in the Flash Explorer and select "New ->Package”. Type in “hello.world”. This creates a nested package “world” in the “hello” package. Right click the “hello” package and select "New ->AS Class”. Enter “MyClass” in the class name input field. In order to use this class later as a document class we need to derive it from Sprite. Click on “Browse..” next to the Superclass input field to get a list of all available superclasses. The list can be reduced by entering the first letters. Select “Sprite –flash.display” as superclass for this guide. Click “Finish” to create your first class.
Run first project
Within a few steps we have created a new project, a package and a new class. Let’s put some lines of code into it and make a first test run.
public function MyClass() : void {
var circle : Sprite = new Sprite();
circle.graphics.beginFill(0xFF794B);
circle.graphics.drawCircle(50, 50, 30);
circle.graphics.endFill();
}
Right click the class “MyClass” in the Flash Explorer and select “Run As->FDT AS3 Application”. Now FDT compiles your project, creates the MyClass.swf and executes it in the external SWF viewer.
Features
Live Error Highlighting
One of the most amazing and time-saving features of FDT is Live Error Highlighting. Due to the incremental builder FDT automatically marks all mistakes being found in the source code as "error" without the necessity of saving or compiling. Errors are detected while coding. Thereby the time for searching Errors is reduced enormously.
Additionally, all potential weak points in the code that do not necessarily have to be mistakes are being marked as "warning". The most important warnings and error marks are explained in the FDT user guide.
Advanced Code Completion
Autocompletion is always accessible by using the key combination CTRL+Space. A small dialogue window opens, suggesting what to insert at that place. A suggestion can be chosen with the mouse or the arrow keys and return.
Quick Type Hierarchy
Using CTRL+T over a class literal opens the "Quick Type Hierarchy". It visually shows you the inheritance hierarchy of this class. Entering letters in the entry field filters the view. The well-known wildcards * (any number of optional characters) and ? (one optional character) can also be used. Via the arrow keys a type can be selected and opened by pressing the return key.
Formatter
The Formatter within FDT offers a wide range of possibilities to set up the formatting of the source code as well as a preview of the settings chosen. All newly generated code is formatted with these settings. Furthermore, all existing code can also be formatted. If you have opened an ActionScript file that is meant to be edited, press CTRL+SHIFT+F and the file is being formatted. If you select a paragraph beforehand, only this is being formatted.
