Flash Feature Request

[ssjskipp]

Just curious how Flash could be...better.
Any features you'd like to see in the next Flash?
Any improvements? Things you'd take out? Alter, what have you?

Here's my list (mainly to deal with the AS editor):
- Ability to bookmark lines of code, and have that saved in a quick-reference list. I hate having to scroll through 1,000+ lines to find one little function, especially if it's spread across multiple frames

- Remember my god damn variable and function declarations! Then have them pop up in a script hint menu, or some sort of key shortcut, you know, "Functions & Varibles in this scope:" then list the ones I have access to in the scope of where the pointer is.

- Highlight innermost surrounding brackets () or {}! This is in Notepad2, it can be in Flash's AS editor. It'd make handling chunks of code, debugging, and working with large if statements and one liners easy.

- Faster library. I don't know if this is just my, but once my library gets more than 20 or so objects, it starts to lag...really bad.

- Depth sorting! You added all these wonderful built-in 3D transformations, but no in-house z-sort! Way to go >>

- Ability to tell me if I misspelled a variable. Countless times, I've had weird variable names where I accidentally switch 2 letters. This could work if the previous, saving declared variables, was in. It could use the declared vars. as a spelling bank of sorts.

[LostVoices]

you should send your list to Adobe so they can consider it

[GustTheASGuy]

Flash is not meant to be a fully-featured coding IDE. Use the right tools.

[Zuggz]

I'll have to agree with Gust on this one.

I'd like to see an non-vector graphics integrated though. So more brushes and blends can be introduced.
Basically a mini photo shop inside flash for bitmap creation.

One less program to update then lol.

[milchreis]

are you using CS3?

a lot people had performance problems and glitches with CS4, worst Flash ever.

[henke37]

I still want a better linker. The flash linker is crap, you have little control over where stuff ends up in the final swf. Oh, and it doesn't cache anything, resulting in ridiculous publishing times. This is really affecting all users, not just scripters like me, because the issue is not just with code, but with all the other assets too.

[Denvish]

Ability to edit the AS window without having to close the find/replace dialogue first.
Annoys the hell out of me

[doctormario]

"- Ability to bookmark lines of code, and have that saved in a quick-reference list. I hate having to scroll through 1,000+ lines to find one little function, especially if it's spread across multiple frames"

Amen to that. I've been wanting a feature like this since MX. My proposal was for a search box that only looks at code comments. It would come in really handy for files that you haven't opened in a while.

The other thing I would love to see are real sound tools (they're getting better with this though).

[Deadclever23]

At 5/13/09 11:42 AM, doctormario wrote: "- Ability to bookmark lines of code, and have that saved in a quick-reference list. I hate having to scroll through 1,000+ lines to find one little function, especially if it's spread across multiple frames"

Amen to that. I've been wanting a feature like this since MX. My proposal was for a search box that only looks at code comments. It would come in really handy for files that you haven't opened in a while.

The other thing I would love to see are real sound tools (they're getting better with this though).

Just use classes already.

They're quick and easy to edit and of course you cut script down by a lot.
If you're using the same if statement over and over, you stick it in a function

[doctormario]

Yes classes are great, and they cut down on all sorts of superfluous code. Still, have you ever coded something, maybe not so elegant, perhaps in Actionscript 1.0, or written arrays with more than a hundred members, or a function with a bunch of conditions...

I can definitely think of a few times where a comment search feature would've shaved some time off of my workflow, especially if it was something that a needy client was changing very 5 minutes.

[ssjskipp]

Even with classes, there's still a mess of functions.
I use classes all the time, and yes, they do help organize and help with managing everything, but there's not much a 'game' class can do for sorting code like the bookmark things.

Also, yes, Flash isn't meant to be a fully featured IDE, but that doesn't mean they can add some common features, and not have it be simply a syntax highlighted notepad.

Another feature for the AS window that would be useful:
Able to split the window into multiple parts. I'd like a way to either view multiple classes in 1 screen, or multiple frames or code. Or even the same frame so I can see lines 100-150 and 500-550 at the same time.

[GustTheASGuy]

At 5/13/09 02:54 PM, ssjskipp wrote: Even with classes, there's still a mess of functions.
I use classes all the time, and yes, they do help organize and help with managing everything, but there's not much a 'game' class can do for sorting code like the bookmark things.

You have to know how to use classes. Classes are ultimately meant to be laid out in such a way that a class has only a single purpose and a single reason to be changed.

Also, yes, Flash isn't meant to be a fully featured IDE, but that doesn't mean they can add some common features, and not have it be simply a syntax highlighted notepad.

It's worse than Notepad, mind you.

Able to split the window into multiple parts. I'd like a way to either view multiple classes in 1 screen, or multiple frames or code. Or even the same frame so I can see lines 100-150 and 500-550 at the same time.

Again, just use the right tool. Which is not Flash. Flashdevelop has both arbitrary windows and bookmarks.

[cool901]

At 5/13/09 12:41 AM, ssjskipp wrote: - "Ability to tell me if I misspelled a variable. Countless times, I've had weird variable names where I accidentally switch 2 letters. This could work if the previous, saving declared variables, was in. It could use the declared vars. as a spelling bank of sorts."

I'd have to say this might be a difficult feature for them to add because it would of course have to log the variable (as you mentioned before) to do this. But the problem is how it would figure out if you mis-spelled it considering how random a variable can be named.

A good feature to add in replacement of this would be a box right next to it that can allow you to select a variable out of all the ones you had declared. Kind of like how they already give a little box while typing in something like:

text_fiend.tex and even though the value is not yet finished it still has in box [text]. But it applies all the variables you a applied to something as well.

var someText = "k"

var codeText = 2

and when trying to reuse var it does something like:

c box:[codeText]
s box:[someText]

you know what I mean?

[cool901]

and to add to that to make it seem more in the way I'm imaging

var codeText = 2

var someText = "k"

var codeThing = 1

with s:

s box:[someText]

with c:

c box:[codeText, codeThing]

and with codeTh:

codeTh box:[codeThing]

and finally with codeTe:

codeTe box:[codeText]

get it?

[Archon68]

At 5/13/09 12:41 AM, ssjskipp wrote: Just curious how Flash could be...better.
Any features you'd like to see in the next Flash?
Any improvements? Things you'd take out? Alter, what have you?

Here's my list (mainly to deal with the AS editor):
- Ability to bookmark lines of code, and have that saved in a quick-reference list. I hate having to scroll through 1,000+ lines to find one little function, especially if it's spread across multiple frames

Great Idea. Although, there is the FIND option... press CTRL+F and you can search through a section of code. It's not as good as what you mentioned, but it's something.

- Remember my god damn variable and function declarations! Then have them pop up in a script hint menu, or some sort of key shortcut, you know, "Functions & Varibles in this scope:" then list the ones I have access to in the scope of where the pointer is.

You mean, something like:

function myFunction(param1, param2){
  //blah;
}

So when you type "myFunction(" it lists the parameters you can have? If that's what you mean, I agree completely.

- Highlight innermost surrounding brackets () or {}! This is in Notepad2, it can be in Flash's AS editor. It'd make handling chunks of code, debugging, and working with large if statements and one liners easy.

- Faster library. I don't know if this is just my, but once my library gets more than 20 or so objects, it starts to lag...really bad.

Yeah, that's just you...

- Depth sorting! You added all these wonderful built-in 3D transformations, but no in-house z-sort! Way to go >>

I use AS2, so no 3D For me....

- Ability to tell me if I misspelled a variable. Countless times, I've had weird variable names where I accidentally switch 2 letters. This could work if the previous, saving declared variables, was in. It could use the declared vars. as a spelling bank of sorts.

It might get complicated, thinking some are misspelled when they are really just different variables. For example, it'd probably say you spelled "var2" wrong, because you already have one named "var1".

__________________
__________________

- As for me, I'd like to see better importing of CS3 Documents. For me, whenever I try to load one of my old CS3 files into CS4, it crashes.

- The option to save in more flash file types than just the current and previous versions of flash. I'd like to participate in collabs with people who use Flash 8 or even MX, but I can't because Flash CS4 can only save in CS4 and CS3 file types...

- 3D in AS2.

- Bone tool improvements. Seriously, the current one is stupid.

That's all I can think of for now... I know there's more, though.

[cool901]

I can think of my own feature and not just trail it off from the one I did before. I can't believe I forgot to mention it.

But flash definitely needs a better handling of sound. Like for one the microphone stuff. It needs more than just being able to detect activity level.

I would like it to have a way of actually being able to get a sound its making in a loop and make it sound objects that are able to playback.

I really want this because I am making an online game and would like to take sound objects of something someone is saying in mircrophone and send it over a server so I could have a actual for of voice chat. You know what I'm saying.

One cool function would be something like for every loop the activity level is above a certain point it will capture the sound in like a for loop or something so long as the activity level is above the point.

[billowillo]

At 5/13/09 05:26 AM, milchreis wrote: are you using CS3?

a lot people had performance problems and glitches with CS4, worst Flash ever.

what? no idea why. i used cs3 for a year or so and upgraded to cs4 when it came out and sure its different, but its WAY better than cs3. especially the tweening engine, its so much more powerful than that of cs3's

[henke37]

Uhm, choose actionscript 3 and it will check for misspelled variables (in most cases).

[Nisas]

I want typed arrays.

I wish they'd fix a few bugs with as3.

Loading bars don't work with games which are all in the document class. You have to load every object on the 2nd frame to make the loading bar do anything. Maybe if they replaced the checkbox "Export in first frame" to a text box that asks you to enter a frame which you load everything on. Then you could just choose 2 and it would fix the problem.

Movie clips can't be accessed if you do a gotoAndStop() on the parent movieClip. For example, say there's a movie clip named Player_mc. And it has 2 frames with 2 movie clips on it named idle_mc and run_mc. If you did the code

Player_mc.gotoAndStop(2);
Player_mc.run_mc.play();

You would get an error saying, "Error, null object reference" <- or something along those lines.

You wonder to yourself, "But I changed it to the 2nd frame which contains the run_mc, how can it not find the run_mc? I know it's there." Well that's why it's a bug.

[henke37]

They have typed arrays, it's the new vector class.

You can export stuff in a different frame, just set the frame to export classes to something different in the publishing settings and the symbols will follow along. Also, maybe it's a bad idea to directly code the game on the main timeline?

For the errors, learn the new event flow. All frame changes are done at one time, after all the enter frame events.