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Haxe

Moving from FDT to MonoDevelop for haXe and NME

Before I start with this post I should mention that Joshua Granick (on of the creators of NME) has a post about:How to Install Haxe, NME and MonoDevelop! That will save me some time and who can explain that better than Joshua.

I wrote something similar when I moved from PC (FlashDevelop) to OSX (FDT) (read my post: moving-from-flashdevelop-to-fdt/). Which also was a reminder when I needed to reinstall or explain it to a college.

Want to know why I’m using MonoDevelop?
Moving from FDT to MonoDevelop is not a big step (my opinion 😛 )

After reading my post, it looks like I’m leaving FDT… That is not what I’m doing: I’ll keep on using it for AS3.
But I hope to ‘take’ some features from FDT to MonoDevelop

Adding your own short-cuts / key-binding

First let add some features that I use a lot:
MonoDevelop > Preferences... (CMD+,) > Key Bindings
search for “comment”
Toggle Line Comment : Edit Binding > (CMD + 7)
search for “case”
Uppercase Selection : Edit Binding > (CTRL + SHIFT + X)
Lowercase Selection : Edit Binding > (CTRL + SHIFT + Y)
search for “template”
Insert template.. : Edit Binding > (CMD + SHIFT + 1) [doesn’t work yet]

Using default Short cuts – (besides the ‘normal’ short cuts)

Then there are some default shortcuts you use a lot:
run >> ALT + CMD + enter
debug >> CMD + enter (doesn’t work)
move the line or highlighted section down >> ALT + ARROWDOWN
move the line or highlighted section up >> ALT + ARROWUP
show completion window >> ALT + SPACE

Adding personal info

Don’t have to explain this … right?
MonoDevelop > Preferences... (CMD+,) > Author Information

Changing settings

Perhaps this is very personal, but I’m not writing this for you alone (it’s also a reminder to myself!)
MonoDevelop > Preferences... (CMD+,) > Text Editor > Behavior >

  • check: Insert matching brace
  • check: Smart semicolon placement
  • check: Enable on the fly code formatting (doesn’t do anything)
  • check: Format document on save (doesn’t do anything)

and
MonoDevelop > Preferences... (CMD+,) > Text Editor > Behavior > XML

  • check all

Moving on:
MonoDevelop > Preferences... (CMD+,) > Text Editor > Syntax Highlighting
I installed Monokai for Darius Kucinskas: you can get it from github. That because I use it on TextMate and gotten use to it….
Joshua Granick has created a FlashDevelop color scheme (if there are people who want to move from PC to Mac/Linux).

Templates/snippets

And then the most interesting… the one that doesn’t seems to be working
MonoDevelop > Preferences... (CMD+,) > Text Editor > Code Templates
Code templates are awesome and speed up your development a lot (create a getter/setter in just one click for example)
Just do the following:
Edit > Insert template...
And remember that the mime type is:
mime: text/x-haxe
It really doesn’t matter what you do… for example // test


but then only bugs…

🙁

Something to read: The official statement from MonoDevelop about Code Templates.

I would like to see

I miss some stuff that I was very use to, so lets make that a NICE-TO-HAVE-LIST

  • feedback when exporting/compiling to a target like SublimeText 2 or in the terminal.
  • code completion on variables and functions
  • templates that work
  • duplicate line (up/down)
  • code formatting
  • auto import
  • code checking while typing/checking without running
  • if auto code checking is not going to happen: a shortcut to check your code
  • automatic “add to folder” (for all folders)
  • TODO added to “Task list”

2 replies on “Moving from FDT to MonoDevelop for haXe and NME”

HaXe/NME are awesome. You feel the power. And the step from FDT to MonoDevelop is not a big one indeed, but the comfort-level-change coming from all the other tried IDE’s is pretty huge. I spend the whole day yesterday doing stuff in NME in MonoDevelop and I just started day #2.

Having switched back and forth from FDT to TextMate to SublimeText2 to IntelliJ to MonoDevelop/NME, I think MonoDevelop and NME has lots and lots of potential. Especially for multi-platform development. I really feel that. In comparison the eclipse-environment of FDT feels like a slow buggy ‘wanna-do-everything-right-but-can’t-do-anything-right’. But the comfort man… the comfort!!! It’s so nice programming in FDT.

Therefor the list you present at the end of your post is not a nice-to-have-list, but more a has-to-be-there-to-be-viable-list. (sorry for all the ‘-‘).

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