Probably the great frustration of Central development for me is that I cannot CRTL + Enter to test my application. Scott Mebberson's suggestion would be a Central emulator like the PocketPc emulators used by other developers, that just might work.
What's your build & test technique for Central? I'm kicking it off with mine below...
I seem to always end up taking the long road but here goes:
Each project is hosted on the web server on my laptop in seperate directories. Within each directory is it's own product.xml, installer.html & installer.swf along with the fla & swf that I'm working on.
During development I start the version number within product.xml at something low like 0.001. Each time I do a build & test I increase the version number, then switch to Central and check for an update from the Central app, forcing an upgrade so that I can see the latest and greatest.
The benefit of this technique to me is that I create new versions of the application at key development points so that I have a roll back if need be, that means that I also modify the name of the swf within product.xml to force the new version to be loaded.
If I need to quickly create a swf to test out a bit of code in isolation from the current application I can also change the swf name within product.xml and use this technique to force the test movie into Central.
Does that sound too complicated, I'm always looking for better ways of doing my work and welcome any suggestions that you might have.
Posted by at 01:10 PM | Permalink
Trackback: http://blog.daemon.com.au/cgi-bin/dmblog/mt-tb.cgi/194
- create app shell (app.swf, agent.swf, pod.swf, product.xml, interface.as)
- upload all
- install
- if I feel good about the app, I get an app #
- open app.fla
- go to publish settings
- find directory where installed
- point publish directory there
- repeat with agent & pod
- shift + F12 to publish, toggle to Central
- either reboot Central for an agent change, or toggle to another small app for an app change
- when done, upload everything to site
- uninstall, and test installation from site
- zip source, upload
- publish app + source
...I still suck at the debugger, though...
Posted by: JesterXL on January 15, 2004 01:18 PM
Jesse, the publish, discover and point publish directory technique is a good one too. Scott Mebberson has told me that he uses the same.
Posted by: Andrew Muller/rebel on January 15, 2004 01:23 PM
I just install the app the first time, and then just publish directly into Central after that.
The process is described here:
http://www.macromedia.com/devnet/central/articles/quick_start_05.html
mike chambers
mesh@macromedia.com
Posted by: mike chambers on January 15, 2004 01:38 PM
Same here. Although this technique doesn't allow for close control over application versioning, I think is the fastest way to toggle between Flash and Central on development time. Since, I work all by myself I don't worry too much version control... besides, there's Ctrl+Z :)
Posted by: Oscar Trelles on January 15, 2004 01:40 PM