Are there any free tools for building AIR applications?

Question

There is a constant argument on the Internet regarding the “openness” of iPhone OS and Adobe Flash platforms. Adobe's argument is that anyone can create a Flash application without worrying about being allowed to distribute it.

It made me wonder ... is it possible to create and distribute an AIR application without any money for Adobe (of course, without any licenses)? Are any of these tools available? Is there an open source?

Answer 1

Yes. If you download flashdevelop (it's free) on your computer, or if you are on a Mac, you need to buy either flashbuilder ($ 699), fdt ($ 129- $ 699), textmate ($ 60, I think), or download minibuilder for free, then go to adobe labs and download the latest flex sdk . Once you have come this far, check out any of the many cross-country tutorials that explain how to create and compile regular as3 apps, live apps, etc.

I really like flashdevelop as it comes with project templates for clean as3 apps, live apps, etc. It makes life very simple. I can’t talk to another IDE since I didn’t use them, but I know some peeps that use FDT and they speak very highly (but it’s not free). Good luck

Answer 2

The AIR SDK and Flex SDK are free and open source. They are the main tools for creating applications on the Flash platform. These SDKs have free and commercial IDEs.

Answer 3

Yes, you can do all this with the free, open source software - I am a Linux user and a Flash / Flex developer, and I am living proof !; -)

I write all the AS3 and MXML code in Vim and compile with mxmlc or amxmlc. There are some syntax definitions and omnicomplete plugins for ActionScript that work very well - not full autocompletion, as you can find in many IDE graphical environments, but enough to make Vim a very good option for developing Flash and Flex.

For the graphical user interface, you can create MXML layouts using designview AIR, a basic design alternative in Flex Builder.

I also have a short wiki article that may be useful for command line tools for creating AIR applications here .

If you are on a Windows platform, FlashDevelop is free and open, which is very good. I use .NET 2.0, but it doesn’t work very well with other OSs.