ADOBE® FLEX® BUILDER™ 3: USING ADOBE FLEX BUILDER 3

ADOBE FLEX BUILDER 3

Using Adobe Flex Builder 3

104

Auto import management

As you enter code with Content Assist, the fully qualified type names are automatically imported into the document

as needed. In an ActionScript document, the fully qualified type name is added to the beginning of the document

with the other import statements. In an MXML document, the import statement is added to an existing script block

if one exists; if not, Flex Builder creates a script block. In an ActionScript document, you can also optionally sort

import statements. For more information, see “Organizing import statements” on page 111.

MXML tag completion

As you enter MXML code, many syntax elements are automatically added, including: closing tags, indentations, new

lines, and CDATA tags within

<mx:Script> tags and when you add event attributes.

Context-sensitive language reference Help

The Adobe Flex Language Reference is integrated into the editor and you can easily access it by selecting an Action-

Script language element, an MXML component tag or attribute, and then pressing Shift+F2. For more information,

see “Getting help while writing code” on page 107.

Formatting assistance

To streamline the work of coding your applications, the editors can help you reformat blocks of code and perform

bulk edits. For more information, see “Formatting and editing code” on page 111.

About Content Assist

As you enter code into the Flex Builder editors, Content Assist prompts you with a list of options for completing your

code expression (commonly referred to as code hints). For example, in an MXML document you are prompted with

the list of tags that can be added at the current location.

Code hints appear automatically as you enter your code. The following example shows the code hints that are

displayed when you add a tag to a Canvas tag:

Only those tags that can be added to the Canvas tag are contained in the list of code hints. This is true of all uses of

Content Assist: you only see relevant hints.

Code hints are categorized by type, showing you both visual and nonvisual MXML components, events, properties,

and styles.

ADOBE FLEX BUILDER 3

Using Adobe Flex Builder 3

105

Code hints appear whenever the framework or language (MXML, ActionScript, and CSS) provides options for you

to complete the current expression. For example, if you type within an MXML component, you are prompted with

a list of all properties of that component. The following example shows code hints for properties of an MXML

component:

Selecting and entering properties displays possible property values (if predefined values exist). The following

example shows code hints for property values:

Code hints for ActionScript 3.0 are also supported. They are displayed in ActionScript documents, in

<mx:Script>

tags in MXML documents, and in event attributes. Content Assist provides hints for all ActionScript 3.0 language

elements (interfaces, classes, variables, functions, return types, and so on), as the following example shows: