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Flash Builder Development

Flex Builder editor cheat sheet

So first off, thank you everyone who came to see my talk at MAX, and thanks to everyone for all the great feedback about Flex Builder! One of the comments I heard the most though, was “Wow, I didn’t know you could do that in FlexBuilder?!?!?” so here’s a cheat sheet of cool editor features (in no real order).

1.) Open type (Ctrl-Shift-T)* - this lets you browse all the types (AS classes/interfaces, MXML files) in your project and quickly open them.

2.) Goto Definition (F3/Ctrl-click on identifier)* - quickly jump to the definition of an identifier (type/variable/function).

3.) Quick Outliner (Ctrl-O)* - get the outline view as a pop-up window, with the added ability to type and filter down to the function/member variable that you’re looking for.

4.) Context sensitive help (F1 on an identifier/tag) - for an MXML tag, function or class/interface, show the help entry for that item in the Eclipse Help Panel.

5.) Open context sensitive help (Shift-F2 on an identifier) - for an MXML tag, function or class/interface, show the help entry for that item in the integrated Help browser. This will most likely open a new browser window.

6.) Jump to matching brace (Ctrl-Shift+P)* - jumps to the matching brace if your cursor is to the left or right of a given balanced brace.

7.) Hover over an identifier - when you put your mouse over a variable, we display its type. When you hover over a function, we display its return type (if it has one).

8.) Add CDATA block (Ctrl-Shift-C) in MXML - wraps a given selection in a CDATA block

9.) Event type hinting (Ctrl-space) - addEventListener( will display all the events that are relevant targets for a listener function.

10.) Fold all functions/ASDoc comments/comments in ActionScript - With folding enabled, right-click on the vertical gutter, drill down to “Folding”

11.) Organize imports (Ctrl + Shift + O)* - Sorts the imports in ActionScript files, removes duplicates and consolidates when needed

Okay, that’s a small list. Enjoy!

Oh yeah, I’ll post some slides and code examples from my presentation in the next couple days
* - same functionality as the JDT

Discussion

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  1. Thanks for the shortcut list and good job on the preso at MAX. I do a lot of copy and paste, and have a slight hiccup with the Ctrl-Click being assigned to “Goto Definition”. Funny thing was I didn’t know what was going on until I found about the Ctrl-Click shortcut.

    Here is how the sequence goes:
    1. I double click on a word, it highlights the whole word
    2. I use my left hand to hit CTRL-C to copy, but i don’t let up on the CTRL button only the C button.
    3. I navigate to the paste word. And when I go to double click on the word to paste over it does the “Goto Definition”

    This is a small quirk that messes with my workflow about 10% of the time. I can live with it but maybe it might give some feedback for future hot keys.

    Posted by Renaun Erickson | October 27, 2006, 12:54 pm
  2. Yeah, I can see how that might be a problem. Looks like Eclipse allows you to change that hot key, but it doesn’t look like Flex Builder likes that. I’ll file a bug. Thanks!

    Posted by david.z | October 27, 2006, 1:15 pm
  3. I too run into the Copy-Paste/Goto Definition problem. I couldn’t change the shortcut to something else, but I turned off “Support hyperlink style navigation” and that worked for my needs.

    Posted by Josh Tynjala | October 27, 2006, 1:22 pm
  4. Some commands on the Mac version are mixed between the Apple-key & the Control key.

    Posted by Chris Charlton | October 29, 2006, 9:18 am
  5. Chris, can you let me know which commands are mixed? Code Completion is one that comes to mind, but that’s to avoid conflicts with Apple’s Spotlight

    Posted by david.z | October 29, 2006, 12:48 pm
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