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farmerdwightks
Participant
October 23, 2010
Question

Trying to understand capabilities of Flash Professional and Flash Builder 4

  • October 23, 2010
  • 2 replies
  • 845 views

I recently purchased the CS5 Master Collection and am struggling to understand the uses for Flash Professional and Flash Builder 4.  I was inspired by Jay Pavlina's Super Mario Crossover game and wish to make similar applications. 

However, I am confused about whether I should be using Flash Professional or Flash Builder 4 or both?  I purchased the two books that Jay Pavlina recommended "ActionScript 3.0 Animation Making Things Move!" and "Essential ActionScript 3.0".  I've been trying to find resources that will help me understand exactly the purpose of each of these applications. 

It appears to me that ActionScript 3.0 is used in both?  So which one should I be using?  Or both?  Or is one more design oriented and the other more development oriented?  Can one make flash game like Jay's using just one or the other?  Any help would be greatly appreciated.

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2 replies

A
Andrei1-bKoviI
Inspiring
October 23, 2010

Forgot one thing. Flash IDE and Flash Builder have WYSIWYG capabilities which loose their value quickly (and become annoying) as developer grows as a programmer.

A
Andrei1-bKoviI
Inspiring
October 23, 2010

In a nutshell, Flash IDE is more design oriented and Flash Builder is more for developers. Well, Flash Builder is really for hard core developers. Both are just development environments that use AS3 core AS3 libraries. In addition, Flash Builder uses Flex SDK with (mxmlc) compiler and additional Flex framework libraries (that are developed in AS3 as well).

AS3 is free, so per se you don't need to use any of these two things. For instance, FlashDevelop is a free top notch Flash development environment. THere are others. As long as you have a compiler that makes SWFs you are good.

Any AS3 application with any level of complexity can be developed with any of these tools.

F
farmerdwightksAuthor
Participant
October 23, 2010

Thanks for responding.

It's hard for me to reconcile the differences between the two development environments.  I programmed with Java for a bit using the Eclipse IDE so I feel pretty much at home with the Builder 4.  I should probably just stay with that?  But then I look at the Flash Professional and I see the timeline and symbols and tweens and all that and would I really be missing out on some cool capabilities if I didn't use it?  Or should I really be fine for the most part if I stick with Builder 4?  After all, I'm hitting the Actionscript 3.0 books pretty hard.  And again, I'm not looking to make anything more than relatively simple 2 dimensional games.  Thanks again for your help.

A
Andrei1-bKoviI
Inspiring
October 23, 2010

It feels like you are better off using Builder. After all it is made on a top of Eclipse.

It is, of course, debatable, but,as a person who saw all Flash iterations and who moved from development in Flash IDE into practically never using it, I think you will not miss practically anything even if you don't know much about Flash at all. The only convenience of Flash IDE for developer is when you deal with complex vector graphics and want to embed them into your application. Event then, Illustrator will suffice.

Timeline is an annoyance and, for a person who has serious development background, is just a huge blob of cumbersomeness, overkills and inefficiencies. Of course, a lot of people will be outraged by these statements but they are coming from experience with both ways.

I predict that timeline will be dead in a couple of versions. Adobe inherited Flash architecture and is forced to cater to a wider segment while they are coming up with a more mature means of RIA development. Their first step is Catalyst.

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