1001 Ways to Debug in Flash
I have checked out something like over 1000 different ways (number inflated for more drama) to debug Flash content within the browser and picked out the following 4 decent tools:
SOS looked sweet for a moment, because it used an XML Socket for the Logging statements. However I ran into some cross-domain issues on an external development server, so I put it aside. The Flash Tracer plugin for Firefox would have been sweeeet, but I gave up trying to get it work in Firefox 3. Xray is a debugging behemoth. I didn’t quit like having to include a connector component to my SWF. All these debuggers are pretty darn good, but they all involved some twisted procedures to get them up and running. I then stumbled across a super simple answer to my browser debugging issue. Why not just do what the Javascript guys do? Trace it out to Firebug like this:
ExternalInterface.call("console.log","test");
It’s so simple it can’t be wrong. There is just an issue that I have to decide if I want to use Flash’s built in trace function or the Firebug log while debugging. This however is taken care of buy Thunderbolt. It is a simple class that notices if Firebug is accessible and otherwise uses trace. Thunderbolt also has a “hide” option built in, for when the SWF goes live.
Conclusion
The Firebug / Thunderbolt combo is an elegant way to debug Flash content in both the Flash IDE and in Firefox. For a quick introduction to Thunderbolt, check out the Article 10 tips and tricks using ThunderBolt AS3, by Thunderbolt’s author Jens Krause.
Laurent on 07 Feb 2010
Hi, thanks for your 1001 ways. I just wrote the 1002nd way to debug flash. It is an Air 2 app for windows. Zero config, nice colorful output, the works. Let me know what you think: http://www.flexr.org/?p=159
Nicolas on 07 Feb 2010
Hi Laurent, I have been using Flashbug for a while now. Thanks for your link, I’ll give your tool a spin next time I’m running Windows.