Flex development on Linux, what's a good free environment? [closed]

Question

I would like to develop Adobe Flex applications using Linux and a free environment. I'd prefer a free as in freedom alternative, but as in beer would work as well. ;-)

Are any of you developing Adobe Flex rich internet applications using such an environment? Or should I face the "facts" that Flex Builder is an essential tool for Flex development and that I'm more or less lost without it?

Dorsman

Answer 1

I use TextMate to do some Flex hacking on my home computer (a PowerBook G4 which can't run FlexBuilder) and I have no trouble writing applications. It depends if you are so used to IDE support that you cannot live without it. I like code completion, project management and the debugger in Flex Builder but I can live without it. TextMate isn't free but any text editor that had code coloring for ActionScript would do for me.

I usually use ant to manage my builds and that is free. The Flex SDK is free. That is all you need plus a little patience.

Cowes

Answer 2

Personally I only have experience with the free aplha release of Flex builder for Linux built on Eclipse. But I must say it is already pretty stable and it provides most features found in the full releases for mac osx and windows. Perhaps the most annoying thing that's missing is the gui editor to quickly lay out your forms.

If you are looking for another option, however, maybe this will be of any help: http://www.williambrownstreet.net/wordpress/?p=78

It's not an IDE though

Hamil

Nice tutorial link, it could be a good way to get going and develop something using free tools. I'm not that interested in Flex builder if there is a free road to take and the bumps aren't too big. – Dorsman

How are you planning to replace the alpha release of Flex Builder when it times out at the end of the year ? (See blogs.adobe.com/flex/2010/09/… ) – Crystallography

Answer 3

You can use plugin fb4linux for eclipse in http://code.google.com/p/fb4linux/ It run perfectly in eclipse 3.6 helios, you can choose flex 3 or flex 4 sdk and you can't recognize this plugin with Flex Builder stand alone verson of Adobe with hight light, auto complete code... good luck.

Vinnievinnitsa

I use this professionally and can vouch for it. Debugger has crashed on me a few times and the build process can be slow, but it's a pretty nice tool regardless. – Dinette

Answer 4

If you create a set up using the flex-mojos maven plugin you can set up a build environment very easily without the need to have a flex builder license. Then you are able to use any text editor to edit Action Script and run a compile along with FlexUnit tests by simply calling mvn package.

Divinadivination

Well it's also possible without including Maven 2 into the mix? I've only heard of Maven 2. Which pros do you see taking this route? And which cons do you see? – Dorsman

Answer 5

Try the official Adobe Flex Builder Linux Alpha:

http://labs.adobe.com/technologies/flex/flexbuilder_linux/

I haven't used it yet, but I'm definitely planning on doing it.

Elfish

I've used it. Eclipse can act a little goofy in Ubuntu due to permissions stuff that I haven't figured out. So, I just launch as root using gksudo. – Vasos

Is it a free beta now? I assume it won't be free when they've made the product stable and get out of the beta state. I interpret your answer as that you haven't seen or heard of any good free environments for developing Flex applications. – Dorsman

It's free at the moment - I assume it won't be when it gets properly released. I don't know of any good IDEs for Linux, I've been waiting to use the official version for a while now. – Elfish

Looks like this project has been whacked by Adobe. Boo! – Tav

Yeah. I read that a couple of weeks ago. Real shame. – Elfish

Answer 6

I just use jEdit and the free Flex SDK for Flex development on Mac OS X and I've been as happy as Larry (however happy he is).

I've added a couple of links below that point to resources for configuring jEdit for AS3 development if you wanna go down that road. AFAIK, what this setup is missing in comparison to Flex Builder is at least code completion, the visual MXML editor and the profiler feature.

• Software over the Rainbow: ActionScript 3 syntax highlighting for jEdit
• HiveMinds Magazine: Using jEdit for Adobe Flex
• Turdhead: jEdit and Actionscript: the collected files
• The "jEdit" category from my blog

Brezin

Thanks! I will look into these. I've used jEdit in the past and I like it. – Dorsman

Answer 7

I'm afraid so. You can use the command-line tools directly of course and for pure AS coding this is OK since FB isn't that great on the refactoring front. But for MXML, the visual editor is a real plus.

You could try FlashDevelop but personally I found it to be terrible a year ago.

Unsteady

Answer 8

I tried the first alpha version (current is 3) of the Flex Builder under Ubuntu and it was just okay, but not useable for productive (just alpha)
FlashDevelop works only under windows, maybe with wine... and in my opinion it's not a good IDE
FDT is on eye level with the Flex Builder but also not free and I don't know if it runs innately on Linux.

It's some kind of wired but I run a windows installation in VirtualBox and there I use the FlexBuilder...

Arpeggio

Answer 9

I use Emacs along with a custom hack to support fcsh (Flex compiler shell) for fast recompile times.

fcsh-compile can be found at this page along with a blog entry.

Briannabrianne

Answer 10

You can check out the fb4linux solution from this torrent: http://www.alivetorrents.com/torrent/8844946/flex-4-in-eclipse-3.6.0-for-linux

Contains Eclipse Helios with FB4Linux. Runs really fast.

Sejant

Answer 11

You can get a (kinda) functional Flex environment in Linux with Eclipse and FDT. You can find instructions here.

Repress