Just started to work with FDT and wrote about my “troubles” (post#1 and post#2) with my transition from FlashDevelop.
(have to be very carefull what I say: “they” are watching me: here and here 
)
And it seems to be a very natural (geeky) thing to learn about ANT.
And where do you go to learn about ANT and SWF/Flash/FDT? (Google?)
After some tinkering all I got was: failed to create task or type fdt.launch.application
This post was very useful: FDT and ANT | A User’s Guide – Part I by Alan Klement.
Watch the videos (I’m not very fond of tutorial videos but in this case; they get the job done).
What I love about the “Video I: Getting Started” is the fact that it builds up from scratch. So watch this video when you want to know about ant-files/xml, how to open the ANT-View, how to open/execute an ANT-file.
The second video (Video II: Compiling a SWF) was what I really was looking for: how to export a SWF. Very nice because it starts from scratch.
And it gave me the answer I was looking for: why didn’t my ANT-file didn’t work (it about 3/4 of the video):
BUILD FAILED
[blabla]\source\a\example\build\build.xml:17: Problem: failed to create task or type fdt.launch.application
Cause: The name is undefined.
Action: Check the spelling.
Action: Check that any custom tasks/types have been declared.
Action: Check that any
Solution is very simple, but if you don’t know, you will hate FDT and really it’s not it fault:
Goto the green “play” button with the brown bag, in the toolbar (one picture says more than a thousand words:)
Select the ANT-file you want to change (I have only one ), goto to tab “JRE” and change the Runtime JRE to Run in the same JRE as the workspace and your done:
Very useful are the ANT-snippets and ANT-Build-template!
Download (created by Alan Klement) and “install” the ANT-template (how-to on this page but here the short version)
To add XML files templates go: Preferences > XML > XML Files > Editor > Templates and click import.
To add Ant snippets go: Preferences > Ant > Editor > Templates and click import.
I haven’t seen the second part of this tutorial: FDT and ANT | A User’s Guide – Part II but I will.
It seems to be focused on the use of the templates and snippets.
source:
FDT and ANT | A User’s Guide – Part I
FDT and ANT | A User’s Guide – Part II
One Comment
ANT is an ugly-ass dragon but it sure as hell can spit fire.
I use it for compiling/opening multiple swf/swc files. I also love using ANT to make my own SWFObject-templates. It’s a master in removing/adding directories and files and also replacing vars in your template-files (and opening them afterwards). If you’re getting handy with ANT you can easily build a whole deploy-system (including ftp-deployment) with a single press of a button.
It can be a very powerful language…. it’s just fugly as a hairy butt! (making loops is so completely non-logical, it makes you want to pull out your hair sometimes). You can also use ANT for instance to read svn-metadata and put it inside .as files (or externally loaded xml-files as you wish)… you can then read them out in a published/staging website… handy if you want to know if the client is looking at the same version as you do. For this to work you do need SVNant (http://subclipse.tigris.org/svnant/svn.html). A tutorial about the basics of this stuff can be found here: http://richardleggett.co.uk/blog/index.php/2006/10/19/svn_revision_using_ant_in_swf. Hope this gives you a nudge in the right direction. Good luck dude… and may the power of the paper-folding/gluiing-gods be with you!