I was thinking about getting a book on Flash programming, maybe to program a cool tower defense game or something. That led me to Macromedia, to see what was required for Flash programming and what tools were available. That, in turn, led to a state of confusion. Can someone help me out a bit here?
There is Flash Player, the run-time component itself. Then there is Flex, which appears to be something else entirely. There is a page on Macromedia’s site which says “As of October 1, 2007, the Macromedia® Flash® Player 7 SDK will no longer be available. The migration path for the Flash Player 7 SDK is Adobe® Flash Lite™ 3.” This page links to the Flash Lite page (duh), which says:
To me, that appears to be aimed at cell phones, etc., but I suppose they are going to try for an all-inclusive, mostly-platform-independent system to allow for cross-platform development.
Then there’s “Air,” which is something else entirely.
In any case, I still have no idea exactly what I’m looking for. What is Flex? How does it relate to Flash, if it does? Is there a free SDK for Flash? Is there a third-party development environment?
The IDE that Macromedia provides costs a bundle, and I’m not prepared to drop a lot of coin for something I may never get a chance to look at anyway.
Any tips or explanations would be greatly appreciated.
Thanks,
RR
The stuff you’re looking at is Flash players- you want Flash itself, which is the editing software. Think Adobe Acrobat v. Acrobat Reader.
Something like this: Flash Editor, SWF Editor, Flash Maker, Easy Flash Software to Make Flash.
Or this: Sprout: The Online WYSIWYG Editor for Flash | TechCrunch
Flex is Adobe’s own editing suite; you can also use Adobe Director, which also supports Shockwave- an older, simpler program than Flash, which you might find is easier to code a simple game in.
I know next to nothing about programming and stuff so take all this with a grain of salt- the last time I coded a game it was in BASIC - and I mean the 1982 Acorn version.
This is all complicated even more by the fact that the last person I knew who wrote stuff for Flash was doing it in 1996.
You’re in the exact same boat I was in two months ago, so I’ve got a lot of answers for you.
Flex is Flash without the animation and graphics creation GUI. It’s Flash for Programmers – a way to create a SWF from ActionScript 3 (the code used for Flash) and possibly some MXML (a XML variation used for defining the stuff you would previously have done via the Flash GUI). There’s a free Flex SDK that includes the compiler.
AIR, I believe, is a way to create desktop applications in Flash. If you’re looking to make something that runs in a web browser via the Flash plugin, just ignore AIR.
As far as third-party development environments go, I’m using FlashDevelop (Windows only, unfortunately). Just click on the link for the latest version. Also, make sure you follow the additional links in the “Important” section – that’ll get you the Flex SDK (which is necessary for compiling ActionScript 3-based programs) and the standalone Flash player (for running your program).
Some more stuff:
Adobe’s AS3 Reference – FlashDevelop will let you search the web version of this, but it’s a lot faster having a copy to dig through on your hard drive.
Adobe’s Programming AS3 PDF
Thanks for the info, folks! That’s just the sort of thing I was looking for.
Now, to get some time . . .
RR
To add to your confusion: Macromedia (the creator of Flash) was bought out by Adobe in April 2005, with the sale completed by December 2005. Remnants of “Macromedia” remain all these years later. The insider joke is the actual sale to Adobe and elimination of the Macromedia name would have gone quicker had they not used a Flash intro.
Not sure which came first, but I’ve been playing this one for years and it is MUCH better (though very similar): Desktop Tower Defense.