I was a part of the FDT beta and when I came back and started a new ActionScript project I was alerted that my beta had expired. While waiting for a free copy as the leader of an ActionScript-related open source project (AMFPHP), I figured I’d switch back to ASDT or SEPY or even the good old UltraEdit.

I cannot explain how painful it was to me to switch back to a regular editor. FDT is simply miles ahead of the competition with regards to ActionScript editing. It has it all:

• a file view that works in packages instead of folders, and that visually shows you which files contain semantic errors
• a tree view of class methods that is reliable and color coded for private, public, etc.,
• an intelligent import resolver and organizer them
• an F3 button that instantly opens the parent definition of a method or variable
• code completion that reads your own javadoc and shows it in a tooltip
• a ridiculously powerful error catcher that will not only show you basically any error that MTASC -strict would catch but also stuff like misnamed constructors, deprecated elements and unresolvable properties that may be causing compiler-undetectable errors
• an error solver that really does work, adding private members to your class, semi-colons, types on vars, etc.
• snippets that work well
• all of this non-intrusive, speedy and reliable

I finally gave in and installed the 1.0 trial while waiting on my new license. Yes, at 200 euros, it’s seems overpriced, but trust me, it will pay for itself within the first few days of use.

A tip: keep Flashout installed along with it, the new inline Firefox-like search in Flashout and filters are hard to beat. I would suggest that someone make that into a standalone panel/app, as a local XML socket is so much faster than LocalConnection, and a Flash interface for tracing to me is rather unsatisfying because it’s slow for text searches.