Flex Builder: Vote For Templates! (Retracting My "Snippets" Recommendation)
Earlier this week I wrote a paragraph about the merits of adding the Snippets view into Flex Builder. I would like to retract that statement and apologize to anyone who followed my advice.
You see, my experience with snippet-like features was with the Flash Development Tool (FDT) plug-in for Eclipse. FDT does not function like the Snippets that I was recommended. In fact, the plug-in I recommended is basically unusable and could be considered harmful.
With FDT, as I recall, you would create your templates in a basic text field then name and save them. When you needed that "snippet" of text, you'd type the name and hit a specific key combination and the "snippet" would appear, replacing the name that you typed. If your "snippet" had variables, dynamically places in the "snippet" to type text, your cursor would appear immediately in that space and as you typed, every place that that variable appeared would update. Ultimately, it came down to you taking the time to create the right kinds of templates for you to really reduce your coding time and effort. Pretty nice, huh? Check out the JSEclipse templates. They use this method of creating snippets.
I assumed that Snippets, at least the plug-in that I was re-recommending via another blog's post, operated in the same manner. But no, woefully not. It's a usablility nightmare. DO NOT USE IT. I'd give you more details but it would be a waste of time — it's that bad.
So, here I go again: let's bring true coding templates to Flex Builder! It's issue FB-11842 in the Flex Bug and Issue Management System (log in required, but worth the time). Please vote for this feature. It may actually save you a week-end or two a year. Think about that.
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http://www.cfeclipse.org/assets/movies/07_Snippets...
17 votes now though, kewl.
DK
(if you are on a windows system) it is gpl though so we could always port this to mac i suppose... hey why not write an air app that does just that...