Archive for the 'Flash/Flex/Flex Builder' Category

Flex Builder 3.0 sneak peek: debugger tooltips

In a way this is a small thing, but it is certainly one of the most-requested debugger features, and I’m relieved that this is finally in the product: debugger tooltips. It really should have been in Flex Builder 2.0, but it didn’t make it in due to time constraints.

So you’re debugging:

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You want to know the value of ‘i’:

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Flex Builder is smart enough to figure out, from context, what expression you probably wanted to see, which is often more than just the single token under the cursor. In this example, when you hover over picDimension, Flex Builder is smart enough to realize that what you probably actually want to see the value of is picDimension[i], not just picDimension:

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picPos[i] is an instance of class Point:

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In the above screenshot, we didn’t automatically show you picPos[i].y, because there is an easy way for you to get that yourself, by hovering over the “y” at the end of the expression, as shown here:

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If you hover over the “length” part of the expression “gallery.photos.length”, we figure out from context what you are looking for — you want gallery.photos.length, not just some global called “length”:

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You can select an expression and hover over it:

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Finally, in all of the above cases, if you right-click, there is a new “Watch” command, to add the expression to the Expressions view. As with the tooltip, it figures out from the current context what expression you probably wanted to watch:

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And in case you missed it, Ted has been posting other sneak peeks all week.

Debugger talk comin’ up at 360Flex in Seattle

In case you haven’t had a chance to catch it, I’ll be giving my Flex Builder debugger talk at 360Flex, August 13-15, in Seattle. You’ll learn a few tips on launching the debugger; variables view mysteries explained; and so on. Hope to see you there!

Flex is open

As I’m sure you have read by now, we have announced that Flex is going open source.

One cool part is that not only is the Flex framework — meaning all the ActionScript source files — open, but the Flex compiler (mxmlc and asc) and command-line debugger (fdb) are also open. Yes, the source of those will be available for anyone to modify and enhance, under the same terms as the framework (the Mozilla Public License).

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