Beginning Adobe® AIR™: Building Applications for the Adobe Integrated Runtime

4.1. Introduction to Flex Builder 3

One of the most significant pieces of the Flex 2 product family was the all-new Flex Builder 2. The original Flex Builder was built on top of Dreamweaver, and, to put it bluntly, the community was not shy about letting Macromedia (now Adobe) know just how bad Flex Builder 1 actually was. Fortunately for the Flex development community, Macromedia acknowledged this, decided to scrap it completely, and started over, using Eclipse as the base for Flex Builder 2. Flex Builder 2 was light years ahead of the original, and most developers now use it as the tool of choice for doing Flex MXML and ActionScript development.

Flex Builder 3 is an upgrade to Flex Builder 2 and has added many new features, including the ability to build and compile AIR applications. The ease of use of Flex Builder 3 makes it the premier tool for building, debugging, testing, and packaging AIR applications.

Most modern systems will not have any problems running Flex Builder 3.

The official requirements from Adobe for Flex Builder are listed below.

4.1.1.

4.1.1.1. Windows

• Intel Pentium 4 processor

• 1 GB of RAM recommended

• Microsoft Windows XP (with Service Pack 2)

• Microsoft Vista Home Premium or higher

• 300 MB of available hard-disk space to install

• Java™ Virtual Machine: Sun JRE 1.4.2 (included), Sun JRE 1.5, IBM JRE 1.5

• Eclipse 3.2.1 or higher for Plug-in install

4.1.1.2. Macintosh

• G4 1.25 GHz PowerPC or Intel-based Mac

• OS X 10.4.7–10.4.9

• 1 GB of RAM recommended

• 300 MB of available ...