Automatic uploading of SWF using FDT and Ant
FDT and Flex Builder 3 both feature the Ant builder (Flex Builder only via an addon). Ant is a project by Apache (http://ant.apache.org/), which does for the Java and AS3 worlds kind of the same thing as make does for the C world. It takes a build file as input, and calls the correct compilers and commands to produce meaningfull output.
Of course, you can compile your project directly with FDT or FB, but the way it handles its output (how it is generated, where it is placed, what to do after compilation) is much less under your control.
I wanted FDT to automatically upload the generated SWF and other resources after compilation, but only if they had been changed. My deployment folder consisted of these resources:
First AS3/Flash project
I started developing with AS3 and Flex some time ago. I really like AS3, Flex and AIR, but I decided it would be good for me to learn how to create Flash applications in AS3, without the Flex framework, and without the Flash CS3/4 authoring tool. So, I installed FDT, and set out to create a website for my freelance activities.
The result can be found at www.aboutcoding.nl. I embedded the following techniques I wanted to learn:
- Dynamic content through XML
- Indexable by search engines
- Deeplinking enabled
- Embedded fonts with some visual effects
- Full-window flash with graceful resizing
I hope you enjoy it, I sure did creating it 