flash tekkie

LogWatcher is the kind of open-source Eclipse plugin that enables hooking a view of a certain log file to the Eclipse IDE. It comes in handy for open-source AXDT Flash development plugin of Eclipse that currently (at version 0.0.7.1) doesn’t have a built-in debugger and is yet to receive it in milestone 0.1.0.

In order to deploy LogWatcher for Flash debugging follow the below steps:

1. Make sure Flash Player Debugger is installed. If not, download it. Debug player is installed if the right-click menu on a Flash content has the Debugger option.
2. Enable Flash Player Debugger logging to the file:
   1. Locate mm.cfg in your home directory:
      1. /Users/username/mm.cfg on Mac
      2. C:\Documents and Settings\username\mm.cfg on Windows
      3. /home/username/mm.cfg on Linux
   2. Open it and ensure that mm.cfg has

      ErrorReportingEnable=1
      TraceOutputFileEnable=1

3. Download LogWatcher plugin for Eclipse from SourceForge
4. Unpack the zip file and copy the org.graysky.eclipse.logwatcher_x.x.x.x folder to plugins folder of your Eclipse installation
5. Restart Eclipse
6. Choose Window > Show View > Other > Log Files > LogWatcher to open the view
7. In the LogWatcher view, locate the Create New Watcher button and click it
8. For  Select a file to watch locate the path to flashlog.txt:
   1. /Users/username/Library/Preferences/Macromedia/Flash Player/Logs/flashlog.txt on Mac
   2. C:\Documents and Settings\username\Application Data\Macromedia\Flash Player\Logs\flashlog.txt on Windows
   3. /home/username/macromedia/Flash_Player/Logs/flashlog.txt on Linux

There are many alternatives to LogWatcher that work outside Eclipse, e.g. Arthropod and De MonsterDebugger offering a more comprehensive debugging functionality. More about them and the AXDT plugin in future posts.

Related resources:

• Eclipse IDE
• AXDT
• Graysky Plugins For Eclipse
• Flash Player Debugger
• De MonsterDebugger AIR-based open-source debugger for Flash Platform
• Arthropod AIR-based Flash and AIR debugger

Related articles:

• AXDT: open-source cross-platform alternative for Flash development
• How to fix Eclipse-based IDE on Mac OS X 10.6.x
• Fixing the security sandbox issue in FDT 4
• Changing Eclipse Dock icon
• Embed system fonts with Flex SDK