Flash Builder 4.7 commercial application - no design view

Question

I have programmed a large, commercial level mobile application using Flash Builder 4.6. It is working GREAT when ran on both iOS and Android devices.

I was using the trial version of Flash Builder 4.6 to develop this application. I used the states feature that FB has built in to handle Portrait, Landscape, and Phone / Tablet configs. This means that I built 4 different layouts for all 8 of my views in my mobile application. Using the design view in FB 4.6 was what allowed me to do this.

I have to say that I LOVE Flash Builder so far. GREAT tool.

My trial ended just last week. I had to purchase version 4.7 of the software, only to find out that they REMOVED the design view from the software.

All complaining aside, what have other programmers who are in the same boat as me done as a solution? I would like to continue to program in AS and Flash Builder as I have taken the time to write the application and learn the whole platform.

As it stands now, I am in the process of downgrading my liscence keys from 4.7 to 4.6, but in order to do this I had to RETURN my retail version of FB 4.7 premium (bought online) and buy a volume liscening version (NOT through adobe, only allowed to do this through a reseller such as CDW). then once I have a key for 4.7 through volume liscencing, it can be downgraded to 4.6.

I'm hoping to get input from others in the same boat. Did you change Programming languages? if so, to what? Did you change IDE's? If so, to what?

Foreboding

Hey, I'm in the boat too... It is so pity. – Psalterium

Answer 1

I've just upgraded to 4.7 today, after using 4 for a year to develop an application. Ironically, I had to upgrade because the design view had developed some bizarre quirks which made it unusable (if anyone else gets the view constantly trying to refresh itself and going blank, I found that swapping to an older Flex SDK, then back to the original one, fixed it!).

I literally could not believe that the design view had vanished, nor the 'take it or leave it' attitude of the guys on the Adobe forums. Comparisons with HTML/CSS (which they have the cheek to make) are false because you don't have to wait for a page to compile each time you want to view it!

I have always remained a Flash supporter throughout the last few years of frankly ridiculous phoney war with HTML5, realising that for the most part it was due to Apple not wanting people playing free Flash games when they could be paying for them! The platform gives you many advantages - advanced, statically-typed, true-OO language, cross-browser continuity, great IDEs - that simply aren't there with HTML/CSS/JS.

I've had to push for a long time to get the project I'm working on now in Flash, and to have to explain this to the sceptics who've just forked out for the software is a massive, well-aimed kick in the nuts!

The Apple/Flash furore has died down now, I'd hoped Adobe would carry on as they always have, but they seem determined to dump on the thousands of developers who've carried the torch for them, this is but another step backward.

I can't countenance my support for a technology when even its architects seem not to care about it anymore. This project will be the last time I use Flash.

Leavis

Answer 2

you can install both 4.6 and 4.7 for the same machine. I use 4.6 to design, 4.7 to code.

Built

Answer 3

Flash Builder was no place for a "design view" anyway. Adobe has been making a much better "design view" for years. It is much better than the FB design view at making assets from comlplex image/illustrator files, putting different images inside of symbols and arranging on the stage, and doing animation. It just as easy to have seamlessly integrated into the flash builder code. It's called Flash Professional.

Schoolfellow

So how does one go about laying out and testing MXML in Flash Professional? You do understand that 'Design View' is something quite different, don't you? Design View allowed you an (almost) real-time preview of the results of the Flex compiler, something which Flash Pro simply does not do. If there's a way to do this I stand corrected, but if there isn't this comparison is just silly. – Leavis

why do you need any mxml in the first place? – Schoolfellow

For the same reason developers choose not to build web pages entirely out of JS-generated DOM objects. For complex, liquid or dynamic layouts, markup layout is almost infinitely easier, more maintainable, more readable (especially to other coders), and quicker to develop. Building the equivalent - which I have done - in pure code is, in comparison, clunky, impractical, hard to modify and maintain, and almost impossible for new coders to get to grips with. You may not have used it before, but I'd have thought the depth of feeling alone at this change would demonstrate the 'need' for it. – Leavis

To me doing it with code ends up in a better finished product. I feel like I lose control over the look of the game when using premade buttons, scrollers, and UI. Not being able to use a movieclip that someone crafted in illustrator means your stuck with that threw-something-together-in-javascript-or-html look. If you are a lone developer it may be harder, but once you have classes in some type of Util package to pull from and extend and an mvc boilerplate you can get deep into the logic of it pretty quickly. – Schoolfellow

You can extend, re-skin or build components from scratch easily with MXML/Design view. Ultimately I guess it's a matter of personal preference but these tools were designed for this express purpose. I've recently rebuilt a project in Flex which I'd originally conceived and built with pure code & classes, and I'd never go back now. You can use MovieClips just as easily, there are no missing Flash features. Have you ever used Flex/MXML before? What you say makes sense but I'm not sure if you realise how powerful and extensible it is. – Leavis

I am more used to pure as3. I just started on a flex project and basically we bring in all assets from IDE as a swc. Sure, you can "skin" components, but you are still bound to their rigid structure. In flash you can make anything you can imagine. We are really only using flex because it is easier to connect with JSON. What do you mean by "extensible and powerful"? – Schoolfellow

Believe me, I had the same attitude - and I was totally wrong. An MXML skin is not just a list of CSS properties you can tinker with, it's a complete definition of a display object. You can insert external assets just as you would with Flash too. Sure, if you wanted to do a complex vector image it would be quicker in Flash IDE than defining every point in MXML - but that would be missing the point. You could insert that graphic, already made in Flash, into a Component - which can then be inserted into a Flex application like any other component, with Flex taking care of layout and lifecycle. – Leavis