Today I installed Flex Builder 3 on Linux. This means that very soon I will no longer be tied to my Windows laptop for Flex development, which I think is marvelous news. As much as I like Windows XP media center edition, for development purposes it isn’t ideal.
Flex Builder for Linux also has great significance for the Zentrack project too, due to the fact that developers will be able to edit and recompile the new Flex front end on all of the major platforms (Linux, Mac & Windows).
After installation I created two test projects, one browser based project and the other an AIR application. The first thing you notice is the lack of the designer view, which isn’t terrible news to a seasoned Flex developer but isn’t great for newbies. I found that when I was originally learning Flex, the designer was very useful for giving me a nice list of the components available and a visual way of organising them.
I was thrilled to see that the code completion functionality works properly as well as the syntax highlighting. The friendly “Flex Start Page” was also available and all of the main functionality that you would expect, including the debugger. It seems that the decision to develop the tools in Java is paying off, but perhaps the full platform independence that one comes to expect from Java isn’t quite there yet.
Not all of the features are included, below are the main ones that are missing:
- Design view
- States view
- Refactoring
- Data Wizards
- Cold Fusion – Data Services Wizard
- Web Services introspection
- Profiler
Most of these tools are time savers (with the exception of the Profiler) and not essential for the creation of projects, but I know I would really miss the “States view” functionality.
In time I shall try importing each of my projects into the Linux version of Flex Builder and determine once and for all if I can give my poor wheezing laptop a well earned break.
To summarise, my first impressions of Flex Builder for Linux are very positive. The Flex plugin plays nicely with the other plugins and considering this is an alpha version, it is looking very slick already.
My Configuration:
- Linux – Ubuntu 8.04 (the Hardy Heron)
- Eclipse 3.3.2 (installed from the PDT package)
For more information, see the official Adobe page.