FlashBuilder

My FlashBuilder 4 color scheme.

08/16/2010 in RIA View Comments

Something that still isn’t very intuitive to do is changing the color scheme on the editor in Eclipse. FlashBuilder 4 is no different, but hopefully this post will help ease the pain. To me a darker background with soft colors helps me concentrate more than a white background and black text. I once had a professor tell me that staring at a white background is no different than staring at a light bulb…light is projected from behind the screen.

Inspired by Kevin Suttle’s awesome instructions on how to customize the color scheme in FlashBuilder 4, I am listing my own settings below. I have always been a dark gray / blue type of designer and the colors I use in my editor work best for me. As with anything, pick what works best for you and if you want, share them. You can find these preferences in Flash Builder by following the links shown before each set of values below. I thought about posting my actual preference export, but there is a lot of personal system and software information saved in there. Instead of risking the removal of a key line in the preferences I am just listing the values that I changed within each section. This will give you a better idea on what changes anyway… You may notice that even my lighter fonts are still not white, but #DDDDDD.

Window > Preferences > General > Editors > Text Editors >

Line number foreground: 192, 192, 192
Current line highlight: 56, 56, 56
Print margin: 176, 180, 185
Find Scope: 185, 176, 180
Selection foreground color: 0, 0, 0
Selection background color: 0, 0, 0
Background color: 39, 39, 39
Foreground color: 221, 227, 230
Hyperlink: 25, 74, 165




Window > Preferences > Flash Builder > Editors > Syntax Coloring > ActionScript >

ASDoc: #3f5fbf
Bracket/Brace: #11a37c
Comment: #7f7e7e
Default text: #c9c9c9
Keyword: class: #5fa0c1
Keyword: functio #5fa0c1
Keyword: interface: #5fa0c1
Keyword: package: #5fa0c1
Keyword: trace: #76b0c3
Keyword: var: #11a37c
Metadata: #11a37c
Operator: #11a37c
Reserved: #5fa0c1
String: #96cee1






Flash Builder > Editors > Syntax Coloring > MXML >

ASDoc: #3f5fbf
Comment: #999999
Component Tag: #11a37c
Default Text: #dddddd
Processing Instruction: #11a37c
Special Tag: #11a37c
String: #11a37c










FlashBuilder: SourceMate AS3Signals Template

03/23/2010 in RIA View Comments

**
Updated: RobotLegs metadata templates added to the zip file. This adds the template for [Inject] and [PostConstruct]. To install follow the same steps below for templates, but on step 3 choose “Metadata”. Import the “robotlegs_metadata.xml” file. Thanks to Nick Collins for the template!
**

Building off of and all props to the AS3Signals for FDT post by Aiden Tailor the following is a similar template for SourceMate / Flash Builder 4. This is a code template for AS3Signals by Robert Penner.

I am an FDT fanboy, but also use FlashBuilder at the office and SourceMate is the bomb. For more information on SourceMate go here. For some in depth explanation of SourceMate’s features check out Jesse Freeman’s post on InsideRIA.

You can grab the template here. (Also included is the base template, in case you accidentally overwrite yours).

How to install:

  1. In FlashBuilder 4 (assuming SourceMate is installed) go to “Window”
  2. Then go to “Preferences”
  3. Twirl down SourceMate and choose “Templates (Snippets)
  4. On the right side choose “Import”
  5. Browse to the “as3Signals.xml” file that was bundled in the AS3Signals_SourceMate.zip file that you downloaded.
  6. Select “as3Signals.xml” and click “Open”
  7. The template is now in place.

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