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[Alistair Aitcheson]

Hi all,

I'm just about to graduate and have decided to take advantage of the Adobe student discounts while I still can. I'm considering getting Adobe Flash CS5 for making flash games. Is this the right product to be developing games with?

Looking at the product descriptions, Adobe also offers Flash Builder, and I've also seen Flex referred to several times, so I'm not sure if Flash CS5 is the product I'm looking for.

Could anyone give me any ideas as to which is the right product for me? I'm an experienced programmer but haven't worked with ActionScript yet (although I plan to learn it). I'm not really looking for freeware alternatives, as I'd rather have experience with the professional tools, as that would be more useful for me in future jobs.

Thanks very much!

[increpare]

I'm not really looking for freeware alternatives, as I'd rather have experience with the professional tools, as that would be more useful for me in future jobs.

Flash Builder is the main official programming environment for flash, and is based on flex.  Good for 'professional' experience (good for debugging).  Also for professional experience, learning how to cope with Flash CS5 is also pretty useful.  Others can probably give you more educated opinions.

In spite of your disinterest in freeware products, which I think is very unfortunate, and your desire that we recommend products on the basis of their commercial use, which I find distasteful, I will mention flash develop, which is uses the Flex SDK, and which is open-source, and nonetheless quite widely used by both commercial and non-commercial developers.  (Interface-wise I find it superior to Flash Builder, though the latter has somewhat stronger debugging capabilities).

If you want to know more about the difference between flex/flash builder/flash professional/flash develop, I'd recommend some googling as a first port of call.

[bateleur]

You don't mention if you've worked with Flash / Actionscript before...

I use Flash CS4 for my development work, which is good (as is CS5 I assume but I'm yet to upgrade), but actually flashdevelop (linked above my increpare) is a really good way to develop Flash stuff and I'd recommend starting with that. The things you can't do with it you're unlikely to miss initially.

[moi]

Flash devellop is free and easy to pick up if you're used to OOP. That said, get Flash CS if you can, I think it's essential, even if you use Flashdevellop for programming, you might need to manipulate FLAs or something.

[Alistair Aitcheson]

Thanks for your help. I used Flash Develop a couple of years ago for a competition, but I only did a tiny bit of programming with it (the title screen and menu!). I think I'll download the latest version and find some ActionScript tutorials, and I'll probably buy Flash CS5 while I still get the discount.

Does anyone know any good ActionScript tutorials or books?

I'm glad to hear Flash Develop is widely used professionally. I hope you don't take my disinterest in freeware products as a criticism of freeware as a whole, as I am a big fan of open-source! It's really just that in this instance I'm looking for skills that I can apply to work, seeing as I'm just about to graduate and will need to get a job. The more familiar I am with industry-standard tools the better. So really by freeware I meant non-industry-standard. Not that I dislike trying new and alternative tools, it's just not what I'm looking for at this time.

Anyway, thanks for the help

[Alistair Aitcheson]

Update: Found out Flash Builder is free for students for non-commercial use, so I've applied for the student copy and will see how it works

[increpare]

Update: Found out Flash Builder is free for students for non-commercial use, so I've applied for the student copy and will see how it works

Wow neat - that'll be pretty convenient so!

[moi]

Actually I think there is also a free version for "out of work" computer engineers, whatever that means.

[Alistair Aitcheson]

Actually I think there is also a free version for "out of work" computer engineers, whatever that means.

I saw that too, which sounds quite a considerate offer! It did say it was for non-profit work, so I assume you'd have to buy a full license if you started selling projects made with it.

[agj]

I believe that Flash Builder's main advantage over FlashDevelop is the ability to create user interfaces visually, but output to an MXML file (or something), as opposed to Flash CS. I don't really know if people use this ability much over Flash CS's possibly more versatile graphical interface.

One thing I know is that Flash CS is pretty much the only thing that's used for websites, so if that's your interest, learn that.

[ACardboardRobot]

I believe that Flash Builder's main advantage over FlashDevelop is the ability to create user interfaces visually, but output to an MXML file (or something), as opposed to Flash CS. I don't really know if people use this ability much over Flash CS's possibly more versatile graphical interface.

One thing I know is that Flash CS is pretty much the only thing that's used for websites, so if that's your interest, learn that.

FlashDevelop used to be able to design an mxml view through this plugin, it hasn't been updated for the latest versions though so it won't work:S