I’ve been using a code-editor for years now. I started with SEPY and now I’m using FlashDevelop. Both on Windows.
A colleague of mine still uses the Flash IDE (on a mac), so I decide to help him with his transition.
Sadly there is no free editor for the OSX that handles AS2/AS3, but TextMate is not very expensive and very lightweight. So I decide that TextMate would be the programme that would get him out of Flash IDE editor.
With a little help of Google (I haven’t used a mac for about 7 years) I found some help/instructions that are easy to follow. Sadly it didn’t work while I followed the instruction to the letter.
While you start reading the post below, start downloading Flex 3.2 SDK, it’s 118Mb but you’ll need it later on so why not start downloading it now.
Start reading here: textmate actionscript 3 and flex bundles, it’s about the files you will use. But besides being informative, I needed more help.
I found that here: setting up a as3 project in textmate, the same steps will be followed here
- Download Textmate (duh), if you want to test this, use the trail version.
- Download Flex 3.2 SDK and extract it into your
Developer/SDKs folder (but there are more places where you can extract it: just read this, for example /Applications/Flex and /Developer/Applications/Flex is also allowed)
- Subversion: follow the instructions from the tutorial: its very easy (read also the note at the bottom of the post)
- ActionScript 3 bundle from subversion: I can repeat myself: follow the instructions (to get the Terminal: Apple + space and type Terminal and get it from the list)
- This you don’t have to do: in the new Flex 3.2 SDK it’s already included
- I didn’t install this either and it worked just fine
- It seems that this is not necesarry anymore (perhaps there was an update of the AS3 bundle…). But if you need it: Follow the instructions, but for the
TM_FLEX_FILE_SPECS src/Main.as and TM_FLEX_OUTPUT deploy/Main.swf I needed some help because what ever I did, I couldn’t get the described window.
I found my answer in this:
Thats a little hidden. With nothing selected in the project drawer, click on the little i at the bottom. Youll get a box to enter any variables you want for the project.
source
And this one was very frustrating: TM_FLEX_PATH Developer/SDKs/Your Flex SDK Folder: this one needed an extra slash TM_FLEX_PATH /Developer/SDKs/Your Flex SDK Folder and in my case it was TM_FLEX_PATH /Developer/SDKs/flex_sdk_3
Note: Some of this is not necessary when you create a project instead of separate files: File >> New From Templates >> Actionscript 3 >> Project. Just check TM_FLEX_PATH if you installed flex in file that standard is read by Textmate. If not you need to fill it as described above (I needed to do that)
- The same as in the tutorial
- The same as in the tutorial
If you extract the Flex SDK, you will get a folder named “flex_sdk_3” and the very observant reader will notice that the script used here doesn’t include the path “Developer/SDKs/flex_sdk_3“, so that is the reason you need to add it to the “shell variables” (number 7). You can also rename the folder to “flex_sdk_3.2.0” and then I don’t think you need to add it to the shell variables, but I haven’t tested it!
Some extra information: svn is something that not everybody will use. So if you have no idea what it is, the bundle can also be installed without subversion. But the cool thing about subversion stuff is that it’s always up to date… (And I can’t help you with how you should fix it without svn)
Every blog mentions the price of Textmate: “single user license (39 ? $53)”. That’s not expensive; unless you live in the Netherlands: “single user license (48.75)” because we need to pay “Prices above include 25% VAT.” 🙁
Links in this tutorial:
textmate actionscript 3 and flex bundles
Flex 3.2 SDK
installing as3 and flex bundle for textmate.
flex and actionscript 3 with textmate and fcsh
Alessandro created another Firefox extension: 
Flash Switcher – This extension comes with all the currently published flash player plugins (from the version 2 to the most recent 9,0,16) and allows you to easily switch from one plugin to another, or also to remove the currently installed plugin (maybe for testing the express install).