Flex Builder 3 works with Eclipse 3.3
Hey, in case you didn’t notice — the beta of Flex Builder 3 works with the beta of Eclipse 3.3. Give it a try!
Eclipse 3.3 has lots of nice new features. One of my favorites — especially when I am working on the Mac — is Cmd+3 (or Ctrl+3 on Windows). This gives you full keyboard access to every menu item, command, preference, etc., just by typing a few characters of the command. E.g. if you want to rename something but can’t remember the keyboard shortcut for rename, just type Cmd+3, “rename”. You’ll be shown a list of every command that includes that word.
On Windows this is nice but not really a big a deal; but on Mac, it’s awesome for keyboard-heavy users like me.
(By the way, you can set up Quicksilver to do something similar for all apps by following an elaborate set of steps; but it’s hard to figure out how to do, and the end result isn’t quite as easy to use as what Eclipse has done.)
For the full description of the feature, go to this page and then search down for “quick access”.
geez i’ve just set up a fresh 3.2 with lots of plugins :(
Yeah, I run into that problem too — especially since I am trying out each 3.3 release candidate. One thing that helps a tiny bit: In 3.2, go to the "Search for new features to install" dialog, and then export your list of plugin sites to a file. Then in 3.3, import that list of sites. At least that’ll make it a little less tedious to get the same plugins into 3.3.
Hey, I was actually going to ask if Flex Builder 3 is based on the soon-to-be-released (17 days) Eclipse 3.3?
That would be really good news given all the improvements in the 3.3 release.
You probably know this, Alex, but for those who don’t: There are two ways to install Flex Builder — as a standalone app that comes prepackaged with its own version of Eclipse, or as a plugin to an existing Eclipse installation. In the second scenario (plugin), we will support both 3.2 and 3.3. In the first scenario (standalone), the beta that we released on Monday is built on Eclipse 3.2, since 3.3 isn’t out yet, but a later release will probably move to 3.3. No promises, but I think that is what will happen.
Remember, though — people with an Eclipse background should never feel constrained by whatever Eclipse version is in the standalone version of Flex Builder. The standalone version is really there to provide an easy one-click install process for people who are new to Eclipse. It would be rather onerous to say "Okay, first you have to go to eclipse.org and download a giant app, install it, and *then* come back and we’ll let you install Flex Builder." That’s what standalone is there to address. So Alex, for your scenario — someone who clearly has used Eclipse in the past — you can absolutely use 3.3; just install the plugin version.
Sounds good! :)
Thank you Mike for the detailed explanations.
Mike, will FB3 still support Eclipse 3.2.1 in its final release? We’re using RAD7 at the office, and we enjoy having a single development environment (RAD7.0.0.1/FB2.0.1 today). Keeping RAD7 with FB3 would be great.
Not sure if 3.2.1 will be officially supported, although it’ll probably work unofficially. The odds are better for 3.2.2.
According to the IBM #1237978 technote, RAD 7.0.0.2 supports Eclipse 3.2.2, we just need to upgrade on our side. I hope you will keep this 3.2.2 release as a minimal requirement, otherwise I could presage some kind of trouble with a 3.3 here… ;-)
Enjoy your week-end!
Unfortunately Eclipse 3.2/3.3 still struggles to install on Vista (http://eclipsezone.org/forums/thread.jspa?messageID=92156112�)
And… what about running Flex 2 on Eclipse 3.3? I have tried but it doesn’t recognize Eclipse as Eclipse… what can be done? do you know of any patch to Flex 2 so that it can work in Eclipse 3.3?
Sorry, you’re out of luck there — Flex Builder 2 just won’t work on Eclipse 3.3. Eclipse strives for API compatibility from one release to the next, but unfortunately Flex Builder is such a large and complicated application that it seems that with every release of Eclipse, a few incompatibilities arise that cause problems for Flex Builder. The same thing happened when Eclipse 3.2 came out — Flex Builder 2 didn’t quite work on it, due to a few accidental incompatibilities in Eclipse’s APIs, so we had to make a few changes in Flex Builder 2.0.1 to adjust to those.
Hi!
Thanks for answering… So Flex Builder 2 just won’t work on Eclipse 3.3… but, as you say, Flex Builder 2 didn’t work with Eclipse 3.2, and after 2.0.1, it started working… so…
do anyone where knows if there will be a FlexBuilder ¿2.0.2? ¿2.0.3? that will run in Eclipse 3.3 in the near future?
My main issue is that i would like to be able to run the new WTP 2.0 with Flex 2.0 in the same Eclipse (to save RAM)… any recommendations?
Sorry, I can’t comment on that. If I were you, I would see if the beta of Flex Builder 3 met my needs, and if so, use that. If not, then you’ll have to have two separate Eclipse installations, one with Flex Builder 2 on Eclipse 3.2, and the other with WTP 2.0 on Eclipse 3.3.
Yes… i could do that, but that defeats all the purpose… I think that the idea of having Flex as an Eclipse plugin was to make it easy to integrate Flex projects with other Java tecnnologies (mixing J2EE with Flex, for example), having to use 2 eclipses makes me wonder if I should be using Netbeans for the J2EE (has far better suportt for the latest trends in J2EE than Eclipse 3.2) and Flex Builder Standalone (since the plugin is now useless)
I mean… Eclipse 3.2 eats lots of RAM, and has bad J2EE5 support… crashes frequently with OutOfMemory errors… and now I will have to have 2 Eclipses open at the same time? I don’t think a lot of machines are going to resist that… (I know mine will die under that type of pressure)
I would really like to see Flex 2 integrated with 3.3… but if it is not going to happen… I gues I will continue working with two ides (opening one, closing the other)… I just feel sad about that… I hope Flex 3 gets released soon…
Mmmm…. is it possible to tell Flex 3 to work with the Flex 2 SDK?
Yes, Flex Builder 3 can work with the Flex 2 SDK. Under Window > Preferences, Flex, Installed Flex SDKs, you will see both Flex 2.0.1 and Flex 3. (In addition, the list of SDKs in that location can be customized, e.g. if you have some custom build of the Flex SDK or something.)
You can set the workspace-default Flex SDK to use, and also you can override that on a per-project basis — e.g. some projects can target Flex 3, and others target Flex 2.
Those are great news! Now I will try Flex 3….
Thanks again! :D
@mike, my question is (probably unanswerable at the moment) what is the upgrade cost from Flex 2 to Flex 3? I got Flex2 less than a year ago, and now I’ll have to upgrade, in order to use one Eclipse instance for creating Flex and AIR applications, as well as edit ColdFusion (I hope the new CF8 plugins work in 3.3) templates with CFEclipse, and perform high-end build and deployments using Ant 1.7 (integrated into Eclipse 3.3, the 1.7 release offers functionality previously unavailable).
Plus, running multiple Eclipse instances isn’t that easy. E3.3 requires Java 1.5, while E3.2 has some issues with 1.5, so you would have to maintain multiple JRE’s on your system and map the appropriate Eclipse version to the appropriate JRE. This is easier said than done, and I know from experience.
Hi Cutter, you’re right, the upgrade cost is something that isn’t yet answerable. I sympathize with the difficulties you are describing, but I’m not really sure if there is anything Adobe could have done to help. Although the Eclipse Foundation strives for compatibility from one version of Eclipse to the next (e.g. a well-written plugin targeting 3.2 should run on 3.3), Flex Builder is large enough that we have found that each new major version of Eclipse causes at least one problem for Flex Builder, despite our best efforts.
Is there something you think we should be doing differently?
I am really disappointed in adobe for not getting a patch out that makes flex 2 compatible with eclipse 3.3. Your install instructions state eclipse 3.x greater than 3.1. But now you are saying nope just 3.1 or 3.2 if you guys are going to create plug-ins you have to do better than this. We have just upgraded our production team to eclipse 3.3 and now you say we have to install a beta of your app to utilize it (that lacks professionalism don’t you think?), and I can’t even prepare my boss for the cost that will be incurred when you finally release flex 3. Can we expect to have to pay for a flex upgrade every year now? If so we will start looking for a more cost effective solution now. Adobe chose to support an open source IDE platform now it is time to keep up with that community and get patches out that coincide with major upgrades don’t you think? If you expect developers to pay for your plug-ins they will need to last more than a year and since annual releases are the plan don’t you thin it would at least be appropriate to post a warning that the plug-in will not be forward compatible so development groups can save the time of upgrading until there is a production supported release of your plug-ins?
great it gets worse, if you choose to install flexbuilder 3 beta and you open a flex 2 project and its settings are modified you can no longer open it in flex 2 so that pretty much eliminates any kind of partial roll out process or testing, especially in a multi developer environment.
This is the kind of problems that will give open source communities a black eye. I spent a great deal of time and effort getting flex and eclipse adopted in my company and I am going to take a big hit if this is not fixed soon. Any information or help would be greatly appreciated.
Hi Sean,
Sorry that you’re running into problems. You may be right that we should put more notice that we can only support versions of Eclipse that have been released at the time that we ship. It’s unfortunately that Eclipse changed enough that the plugin ended up being incompatible, and as you know we looked to address that by having a beta of our next version available. Backporting older versions of the software is not always feasible given our development and testing cycle.
As for the Flex 2 to Flex 3 story, we were very clear in the release notes that projects that are modified in Flex Builder 3 will not be able to work back in Flex Builder 2. However if you make no changes the project will still work. If you want to work in both FB2 and FB3 environments you may need to run parallel installations.
Matt
Adobe
Hi, I’ve been evaluating Flex and Flex Builder 2 in the last couple of weeks. I have been impressed with how easy it is to create robust GUIs that can talk to a Java back-end.
Has an official release date for Flex Builder 3 been announced? I do not want to purchase Flex Builder 2 for our present development needs only to find that Flex Builder 3 is released a month or two later.
I’m glad you like it, Santiago. An official release date for Flex Builder 3 has not yet been announced.
Hi Sean,
I have to say you are not completely going towards right direction putting all the blame on Adobe, I am not anyway affiliate with adobe and just expressing my opinion, hopely its not gonna be taken wrong way.
When you say you have upgraded whole development team to eclipse 3.3
and then realized flex builder is not working, this is already a mistake on your side, eclipse minor version upgrades are (as you know) not really minor, 3.1 vs 3.2 vs 3.3 etc .. are significantly different including possible platform API modifications, as Mike stated its something that can not be "fully" predictable until release is out, and only then plugin developers have best shot to adjust plugin to new version api. first thing that you should have done before upgrade is to make sure that,all plugins currently in your existing eclipse version(s) are going to work with new Eclipse version. for flexBuilder specifically all it takes is three word search "flexbuilder eclipse 3.3"
it is reasonable doubt to assume that plugin can not physically support versions of IDE that are not even out yet,
how can you assume that flexubuilder plugin *should* support all eclipse 3.x versions including future 3.4, 3.5, 3.6, 3.7 etc .. 3.x series ..which are not even born as an idea yet, thats very unreasonable , and physically not possible to support non existing versions.
when FB2 was out there was no Eclipse 3.3 .and thats something you should have put into consideration before upgrade, now other thing is, upgrade is done, there is nothing can be done, but again, instead of finding your way out, you attack adobe again, but why?
I have seen many many developers using FB2 SDK with FB3 IDE successfully in production environment and waiting for a FB3 release, thats just a reality they face if they want cutting edge Eclipse and same time face the reality.
I wish to emphesize the words in Sean Genung’s first post, without retyping everything he said. IMHO Adobe must take its responsability and patch FB2 to be able to work with Eclipse 3.3.
Adobe chose to use the Open Source community for its not-Open Source project. Off course that’s no problem. As lons as Adobe uses, and not abuses.
If Adobe sees the unnual upgrade to Eclipse 3.3, with loads of attractive functionalities that appeal to current users, as a way to have those users upgrade to the newest Flex Builder, I would call it abuse of the Open Source community. Because then Adobe isn’t merely making profit out of it’s own work, but out of the Open Source work. …But you don’t need to tell me that this does consent to the License Agreements of Eclipse, as I am aware that it most likely is. But nevertheless in my opinion it just aint right.
I personally bought 2 licenses of Flex Builder one month ago and didnt realise that this was going to be the case.
I have experimented in getting FB 2 to work with Eclipse 3.3 anyway and got to the unsupported solution of copying Startup.jar from an Eclipse 3.2 environment to the 3.3 environment. This would unlock the FB 2 installation to install to Eclipse 3.3.
I have seen that this works for a very very big part. I get code-completion, building, compiling, debugging. Almost everything works… At the moment there is only 1 bug that still annoys me: when in project-settings in Additional Compiler Arguments I state ‘ -services "services-config.xml"’ (this file exists and Eclipse doesn’t say It can’t find it, just like it would if I misspelled it.) then I simply get 1 error "Unknown problem" in the Problems View.
Surely this isn’t the only bug, there probably are a few more.
What I am trying to say is it probably IS feasable (Matt: August 13th, 2007 at 3:44 pm) to patch FB2 to Eclipse 3.3. The question only is, is Adobe willing to do the right thing and patch the "older" FB2 while they actually want to sell people the "newer" FB3 as soon as it is released.
Really, so you expect an old version of software to be designed to run on a new version of the platform that was unknown (unless you can foresee the future).
Come on…that’s just silliness. How many old DOS and Windows 3.x apps can you run in Vista? Not the simple ones but the hefty ones.
Adobe has done something though. They’ve released the Flex Builder 3 Beta (which I’ve been using for nearly 6 months and found to be extremely stable. One of the advantages of FB3beta is it allows you to use different Flex SDKs.
So why not install FB3beta, select to use Flex Builder 2 SDK. And go on your merry way. And if that doesn’t work. Well guess what - welcome to the world of computing. Would you like to see the pile of hardware and software worth thousands of $$$ that I’ve had to toss out over the past 10 yrs because incompatibilities with new operating systems and software products?
It stinks…but I think Adobe’s handled this much better than many others have by allowing the new Flex Builder 3 beta to be able to use the older SDK.
Adobe likely will get around to providing an update to Flex Builder 2 to allow it to work with Eclipse 3.3. They say they are commited to CFEclipse which works on 3.3 and do not want to anger those who use both. But lets let them get Flex Builder 3 out the door first as the bug fixes for 3.0 could well find their way into any 2.0 update.
Hi Mike,
As you are a developer on the Flex Builder team, I’m hoping you can answer something for me… We are building a plug-in that customizes a Flex development environment for a proprietary framework. This is moving along well for the plug-in version of FB that runs in standard Eclipse, but I’ve run into a brick wall with the stand-alone Flex Builder. Somehow Adobe has either intentionally or inadvertently disabled the ability to add plug-ins to the latter platform. This is a real headache as we would like to take advantage of the same motivations Adobe used for creating the stand-alone version… specifically, we want to simplify the installation process for those folks that are Eclipse neophytes.
Can you comment on how to add plug-ins to the stand-alone version? I am not talking about anything fancy here–just a menu popup menu extension, which Adobe is clearly using within its framework. How does one enable the ability to add such a beast.
Thanks,
Alan
Alan, I don’t know of any reason why an Eclipse extension wouldn’t load into standalone Flex Builder. We aren’t doing anything special there — standalone Flex Builder is pretty much just Eclipse plus some plugins, no special magic. As far as I know, it should just work. Naturally we love it when people add value to Flex Builder; when that happens, everybody wins.
As far as debugging the particular issue you are having, I’m the wrong person to help with that — you could post a message on adobe.com’s support forums, or post a message on the "flexcoders" list on Yahoo groups, which has a very active and helpful user community. If those don’t do the trick, perhaps contact Adobe tech support and explain that you are a vendor trying to integrate your product into an Adobe product.
I wanted to reply to Jason.
Jason, your comparison from MS-DOS to Vista doesn’t stand. In your comparison, you leave out the fact that FB2 is the current latest stable and sold release and that Eclipse 3 is the current stable release. Using your comparisation, the correct comparisation would be that let’s say Microsoft would sell Microsoft Office 2003, but have it not be compatible with Windows Vista. That is just as not-done.
Months have passed and on the Adobe site I still haven’t had the answer to the simple question:
Will Adobe be doing something about it? Or should we stop holding our breath.
(And as an answer to your question why not use the Beta:
- It is a beta. There’s a reason for calling software beta.
- Once it comes out of beta I MUST do a PAID upgrade. The beta project files do not work on FB2.
- Are you telling me I bought FB2 just to throw away my money? I bought it just a month before my previous post.
)
Maybe as insiders you guys can give the answer to my question above, whether or not Adobe will pick this up.
Finally I found out how to run Flex 2 in Eclipse 3.3, and i was going to blog about it… but it turns out that others have found the same solution i found:
http://www.eclipsezone.com/articles/howto-flexbuilder2/
I know this entry is almost a year old, but I must say how nice and informative I’ve found the discussions going on in here.
Well, I now use Flex 3 - but looking to get a plug in for Eclipse, I believe that was what led me to this blog#
Nice site, I will try and bookmark your site :)