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Those of you who have used SciteFlash from bomberstudios.com know that one of the key features of that editor was its ability to cause Flash to compile directly from SciteFlash’s coding IDE. This way, you could code like normal, and press Control + 1 to cause Flash to test movie, just like you would do Control + Enter in Flash to test movie. This was beneficial because you didn’t have to ALT + Tab (or click on Flash in the taskbar) to switch to Flash just so you could compile.

I’m using Dreamweaver, just like I did in Flash MX (because Dreamweaver had tabs back then, Flash didn’t), because I’m doing some crazy re-factoring, and Dreamweaver has some awesome find and replace features. …however, same problem; don’t want to switch to Flash just to compile. However, I have a JSFL folder in my class directory that I’m viewing in Dreamweaver’s Files panel (which is what Flash’ Project Panel should be). I dropped a JSFL file in there called “compile.jsfl” that just does:

fl.getDocumentDOM().testMovie();

All I have to do is double-click it in Dreamweaver, and it’ll go back to Flash and compile my only open FLA. Haven’t figured out how to map to a Dreamweaver keyboard shortcut yet, but anyway, awesome!

Re-factoring your classes’ package path isn’t so bad. With 1 find and replace command in Dreamweaver/FlexBuilder, you can change it from “company.” to “com.company.” in just 3 seconds on all of your classes without having to open all, or any of them.

…this isn’t so easy with MovieClips in Flash. FLA is binary, and to access the AS2 class name, which associates a MovieClip with your class, you have to right click on a symbol in the library, manually change the name in a cramped text input field, and click ok… then repeat this for your other 39 classes, or more.

Or you could use JSFL. Programmer I work with educated me why you prefix class paths with “com.” and “net.”. I’ve forgotten why it’s important, could of sworn at the time I had an epiphany of understanding, but regardless, here’s the code to quickly change all of your AS2 + linkage ID’s to point to a new class path/linkage ID name. I include linkage ID because typically your linkage ID and AS2 class path are, and should be, identical.

function d(o)
{
        fl.trace(o);
}

function init()
{
        fl.outputPanel.clear();
        var i = fl.getDocumentDOM().library.items.length;
        while(i--)
        {
                var linkage = fl.getDocumentDOM().library.items[i].linkageIdentifier;
                var className = fl.getDocumentDOM().library.items[i].linkageClassName;
                var testingString = className;
                if(testingString != null)
                {
                        if(testingString != "")
                        {
                                var a = testingString.split(".");
                                if(a[0] == "roundboxmedia")
                                {
                                        a.unshift("com");
                                        d("old:");
                                        d(fl.getDocumentDOM().library.items[i].linkageIdentifier);
                                        d(fl.getDocumentDOM().library.items[i].linkageClassName);
                                        fl.getDocumentDOM().library.items[i].linkageClassName = a.join(".");
                                        fl.getDocumentDOM().library.items[i].linkageIdentifier = fl.getDocumentDOM().library.items[i].linkageClassName;
                                        d("new:");
                                        d(fl.getDocumentDOM().library.items[i].linkageIdentifier);
                                        d(fl.getDocumentDOM().library.items[i].linkageClassName);
                                }
                        }
                }
        }
}

init();