Flash Builder 4.7 and design view question

As a coder and designer I like to have tools to do both. Removing design view was a mistake that I hope will be rectified soon

I have a workaround in the meantime:

In your flex SDK folder, locate the file flex-sdk-description.xml

Mine was in: c:\Program Files (x86)\Adobe\Adobe Flash Builder 4.6\sdks\4.12.0\flex-sdk-description.xml

It will contain something like this:

<flex-sdk-description>

<name>Apache Flex 4.11.0 FP 11.9 AIR 3.9 en_US</name>

<version>4.6.0</version>

<build>20131017</build>

</flex-sdk-description>

Change your version to 4.0.0 like this (you may have to set the file permissions to allow you to save)

<flex-sdk-description>

<name>Apache Flex 4.11.0 FP 11.9 AIR 3.9 en_US</name>

<version>4.0.0</version>

<build>20131017</build>

</flex-sdk-description>

That will enable design view, I haven't had problems doing this but obviously I advise caution and there may of course be glitches with newer components

Regards

Gary

I'm very glad Adobe has a trial period, because I would have bought FB until I found out they didn't have design view. They have just cut out a huge market of amateur coders like myself.... Its ok... once they see their profits drop, they will bring it back. Adobe I loved your products but you really dropped the ball with getting rid of design view.

I purchased Creative Cloud CC for $50 a month (one year sub) and I can tell you across the board Adode royally screwed up their applications by dropping widely used features. I should have got the free one month trail version because if I had, I never would have purchased it. In all my years in web applications development I have never seen effective features (especially convenient drag drop features) from programming tools. if anything it is just the opposite were apps tend to try and do MORE Drag Drop options and move away from slow hand typed coding. A perfect example for a design view in builder 4.7 is the grid view. the design view makes easy work of the grid which would take 10 times that long in core coding. not to mention if you are new to the software and open the app .... a new user would not even know where to begin with out the design view or what components there are available.  I give Adobe CC product two thumbs down and a kick in the pants. ONE PISSED OFF CUSTOMER.

Reading all of these comments I notice the discussion has gone toward a debate on how someone should program, as opposed to what happened to the design view option.  I'm using the trial version to see if it is worth purchasing enough licenses for several people at work, and so far using the 4.7 IDE doesn't seem to give me much benefit.  I've already write mxml applications in Linux using mxmlc and vim which are free and quickly installed with yum.  The help files are handy, but not any more handy then google.  %s finds variables just as quickly as clicking the components....  So is there something I'm missing?  I couldn't care less about being a "better" programmer, I get paid to deliver software as quickly as reasonably allowable.  If a design view helps me organize layouts quickly and more efficiently than using vim I would purchase that.  Thats why people use programs like LabView, QT Creator, Visual C++, etc....  You can write configuration gui's quickly and efficiently by dragging the components and then adding the code.

With that said, I do have a question that is relevant to the title of this thread.  Does anyone here have a link to any disussions or official releases explaining why design view has been removed, and whether or not there are other tools avalable for purchase that will include it?  Or, from reading some of the comments, is writing apps using flex and/or mxml just a waste of time because it is going to no longer be supported?

I agree with many here that the removal of DV in 4.7 was a huge misteak.

Tweaking objects is far faster in DV than anyone can do in code. Not to menion you get to see the results instantly.

Adobe gets enough money from their products to keep its development up. Stop taking features out!

Disclaimer: The following is my opinion. I'm sure you have an opinion, too. Maybe quite different from mine.

This is an interesting thread -- not only because of the obvious frustration expressed by most, but also because of the lack of any response by an Adobe employee.

Yes, Adobe are the culprit here as they have no intentions of keeping Flash Builder and it's Design View in sync with whatever changes/improvements Apache Flex makes. And the Apache Flex project leaders have never stated that they will ever offer an IDE/design view to replace Flash Builder, so don't hold your breath. Adobe won't offer anything, either. Why should they continue development on the very thing they killed? It might somehow threaten adoption of whatever new and exciting HTML5 animation software they come up with.  Like Adobe Edge Reflow, which features, of course, a design-view type of UI. Now we can make a pretty picture move across the screen! Just like FutureSplash (which would become Flash) could do back in 1995! And remember that Adobe's current CEO used to work at Apple. Draw your own conclusions.

The way I see it, another third-party would have to offer an IDE which is compatible with Apache Flex because I don't think AF has any muscle or talent to do that now--and my conspiracy theory is that they wouldn't want to p*** off the people at Adobe by doing so; they are still connected to one another. Adobe does not really want competition from AF, and vice-versa. The only way AF will survive is to work on bringing the Falcon JS compiler to market.

IntelliJ IDEA offers a primitive (in comparison the FB) Android UI designer. So maybe someone will come up with something similar for Flex.

Full disclosure: I've purchased Sencha Complete, which features something like Design View, and am learning the brave new world of building web sites based on Javascript technology from the 1990's. This is the new normal. As a former Flex developer, I accept the need to lower my expectations and how great I used to have it with Flex, but it really is all gone now. The types of things I could accomplish so quickly, easily and cheaply in Flex will have no replacement for several years (including using Design View--critical in my opinion). But you might as well start getting used to coding in Javascript now, as whatever happens in the next 3-5 years that will make you money will be based on JS, not ActionScript/MXML.

It was a fun ride while it lasted. But we are now "back from the future". It will be a while before we get to that future we used to live in.

Why on earth will somebody just decid to remove something that works, or was there a loud cry out from the flex community for it to be removed. That is the only feature that got me to buy a flash builder, if not then I will just download the SDK and run it on eclipse.

This is very INSANE!

What happened to rapid development? I don't believe one bit that typing is faster than drag-and-drop

Whoever made this decision should quickly call for a board meeting to get this restored without hesitation.

They REMOVED Design View?!! Are they CRAAZY! I don't care a flip if "real" programmers find it more convienent to code objects in MX rather than use DV; I find DV far more convenient. The ease of use of components is the only attraction of Flash Builder for me. No DV, no Flash Builder for me.

Back to using FlashDevelop.

Yep, I've already gone back to 4.6.  I only worry about just how long term a solution this is, eventually it won't be compatible with something... but *hopefully* it will be quite a while before that problem comes up.

Just to add my 2 cents here, I completely agree, losing the design view is terrible for both reasons mentioned above.  It is extremely helpful for placement of controls as well as finding the appropriate component to use.  Obviously we can do it without the design view, but this signficantly increases my development and testing time.  What was a quick and easy process is now much more tedious.  With a couple of projects already done using Flash Builder/Flex, I'd hate to switch to another tool, but we'll have to see how this goes...