Project Blueprint, code samples a click away
Yesterday I heard about the new Blueprint Eclipse plug-in from the announcement on the Flex Doc Team's blog. I was intrigued by the convenience it promises, so I installed it and gave it a spin. The idea of having code samples just a click or key-press away got me pretty excited, because for me at least, seeing actual code is a critical step for me in learning how to use a particular class or interface.
Installation was pretty straightforward. It's been a while since I've installed an Eclipse plug-in, so I followed the Blueprint installation instructions pretty carefully.
Once installed, I restarted Flash Builder 4 beta and opened a sample I've been working on for the Text Layout Framework Overview. I noticed the new blueprint icon in the toolbar, which I've circled in red below:
Next, I highlighted the class name StandardFlowComposer from the import statements, then clicked on the blueprint magnifying glass icon in the toolbar to see whether it would pull up anything. Not surprisingly, there were no results. Text Layout Framework is still pretty new, so I'm not surprised that it returned no results.
I then delved into the constructor code in my example to highlight the property named "flowComposer", hoping this fairly common Text Layout Framework property would result in a hit. I was pleasantly surprised to see that it did:
Though, oddly, the first three hits were all of the same example code. Scrolling down to the fourth sample code listing, I found something useful, an example that actually uses the flowComposer property. I really like how the text "flowComposer" is highlighted in yellow:
I also tried just typing in partial phrases, and that didn't work so well, but I don't anticipate using it in that way. It's more likely that I've already looked up an API in the reference docs or I've copied it in from somewhere else, so highlighting full class, property and method names fits my programming style pretty well.
All in all, I think this could be pretty useful, especially as they smooth some of the rough edges, and make the plug-in easier to configure. If you give Blueprint a try, please let the team know how your experience went. They have set up a Blueprint forum for discussing all things Blueprint. Enjoy!