ActionScript 3 Log

Flash MiniBuilder: online AS3 IDE, edit (with code assist) and compile swf online.

Flash MiniBuilder Part I
Flash MiniBuilder Part II
Flash MiniBuilder: Part III – AsWing

This project, currently named ActionScript MiniBuilder, features code assist (code completion) for ActionScript 3 and compilation of one-file AS3 SWF. It runs in your browser, you only need Flash Player 10 and Java. The code assist part is written in pure ActionScript. The compiler runs in a Java applet.

Though it’s in early stages, the currently implemented set of features includes:

• Solving existing names: the resolver searches recursively the current and parent scopes, the inheritance chain and imports.
• Hints for new names: the resolver searches scope, inheritance and all importable things – that can be class, interface, functions and vars defined at package level.
• Hints for new types. (class/interface): the resolver looks in all type database.
• Autoimport: when a name can’t be resolved in scope and existing imports, and can be resolved by using a new import, the new import is added to script.
• Triggers: several chars and char sequences trigger the code assist hinting as follows:
  • “.” -> list members
  • “:”, “new”, “as” -> list all possible types
  • “(” -> hint function/constructor parameters
• Simple expression evaluation (just 2 for now):
  • ’string’ and “string” are of type String and hinted accordingly
  • (expr as Type) is evaluated as Type and hinted accordingly

So you can have things like:

(value as Type1).doSomething().memberName.doOtherSting().otherName

resolved correctly.

Now, let’s play!
Here’s a first example (edit source then click “Compile and Run”):

Note: for code completion, flash player is enough, but you need Java plugin in your browser to be able to compile/run. The compilation is done at client-side, so don’t worry about server load. Have your time and play with it as long as you wish. You can bookmark this page to use it whenever you think Flash or Eclipse starts too slow for a simple script.

What’s next:
- A project manager for multi-file projects.
- A swc parser to provide hinting for external classes and other names.
- Integration with Flex SDK, code hinting for MXML or other layout markup.

And small but important enhancements:
- line Numbering
- search / replace
- hints for typed Vectors

In the making
ActionScript is not the fastest thing on Earth, we don’t have background threads and there are other limitations. Still, using a few tricks, like slicing tasks to mimic threading, doing the minimum of computing right when it’s needed and caching results until new ones are available, we can build pretty powerful stuff.

Considering the programming effort that was required to build MiniBuilder, these are the
main components:

• ScriptArea – a textarea control that can be used to do real-life code editing. It can manage 5-10,000 lines of code without becoming very slow. It features (almost) all common key and mouse combos to control cursor and selection, fast font formatting, which is a must for real-life source code. Unfortunately, due to some limitations of FlashPlayer, you cant properly insert some UTF8 chars (keyboard and paste both are affected). I’m searching for a better solution.
• Code assist – parsers, resolvers, type database. This is the core of the project.
• Java Applet AS3 compiler (based on asc.jar from open source Flex SDK)

MiniBuilder uses ASWing which provides a powerful pure AS3 component framework.

ActionScript MiniBuilder is released under MPL license.

There are lots of known bugs and limitations, I’m not going to list them now here, but I’ll be
happy if you fill in an issue at the google project’s page (project’s URL in Part II). Or simply add a comment here.

Depending on how much feedback the project gets, there will be more or less future inhancements,
so feel free to state your opinions, bugs, requests.

Stay put, in few days comes Part II with more details about MiniBuilder and a new example.

Any contribution to the project is welcome!

Next: Flash MiniBuilder Part II

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