FDT is certainly the best tool ever for Actionscript coders, and with the recent availability of the Flash Player 10 beta (codename Astro), it might be a great experience to create content for this new player.
But the current FDT stable release need a specific configuration with the latest Flex SDK nightly build for 2 because you can't configure a core library to use the new playerglobal.swc Let's see how to configure those tools to bypass those problems, and target Flash Player 10 with FDT
Flex SDK
Go to http://opensource.adobe.com/wiki/display/flexsdk/Download+Flex+4 and
download the latest nightly build (we will use the newest one a this date:
build 4.0.0.1848 of Sat May 24, 2008) Uncompress the archive to any folder: I
choosed /Developer/SDKs/Flex4
In the previously selected folder, edit the file frameworks/flex-config.xml,
then find <target-player>9.0.115</target-player> and replace it by
<target-player>10.0.0</target-player>
In the Flex 4 SDK, the rest of the config file is already set for using the
version of the 'target-player' markup...
FDT 3
In your eclipse, proceed to a standard setup of FDT, but be sure you're
using the latest stable release, version 3.0.7.1010... Once it's done, go to
the "Core librairies" section of the FDT Preferences. In the AS3 Core
Librairies tab, choose "Add...".
Choose "Pure AS3 (Flex 3)" as the library type, and "FP10" as the library
name, then click "Browse..."
In the linked librairies list, click on "New...", enter FP10 (again) as
name, then browse to select the Flex4 folder you created on previous
step.
Once it's done, check that a "FP10" entry has been added to the core
libraries, then close the preferences.
Create a new FDT Flash Project, and select the FP10 Actionscript 3 Core
Library.
The next wizard's screen will show a red crossed playerglobal.swc, but we
can't do nothing for now. Just add external libraries you would need then press
"Finish".
The playerglobal.swc cannot be found because FDT seams no to use the
flex-config.xml file, but has the path from the root of the Flex SDK folder to
the playerglobal.swc hard-coded, so it will look for the
frameworks/libs/player/playerglobal.swc file...
To avoid that, open you project and edit the .project
file. You'll see a markup containing the path from the library's root to the
playerglobal.swc. Juste update it to point to the good file, i.e.
frameworks/libs/player/playerglobal.swc, save it, et voilà!
Another
option would have been to copy the playerglobal.swc file from
the frameworks/libs/player/10/ folder to its parent
frameworks/libs/player/ then nothing has to be done in FDT, but I
don't like the idea that the SWC used by the SDK is different that the one used
by FDT. This could also be fixed by changing the flex-config.xml file (always
in the SDK Folder), but the upgrade would be more complicated after that...
You'll be able to compile AS3 for Flash Player 10 by creating an FDT AS3
Application as usual.
Flash Player 10 Debug
The flash player 10 debug should be useful to debug your applications: you'll find the standalone version for all platforms in the SVN repository of Flex: http://opensource.adobe.com/svn/opensource/flex/sdk/trunk/in/player/10/
Know issues
The new SWC parser from the FDT beta seam not being able to parse Vector's types. As a consequence, it replace it by "null", making the rest of the methods fail. For example, graphics.beginFill can't be recognized in FDT (as mots of the Graphics class methods) because of that... But you still can compile!
I didn't test very much this config, this part will be updated if needed. Feel free to post other bugs and/or tips in the comments.
::UPDATE:: The official FDT 3 stable release can now parse the new Flash 10 playerglobal.swc, no need to use the beta version anymore... ;o)
Last comments