Hi

I just thought i would share my way of setting up FlashDevelop in Parallels Desktop on OS X to work (almost) like on windows. Most of this information is already scattered across the forum, but I could not find a complete "setup guide" to help me out. Anyway, here goes

Update Nov 29 2008: This guide is now tested and verified to be working with Parallels 4 and CS4 as well as P3+CS3 Also tested in Parallels 4 safe mode.

To all of you that has trouble getting FlashDevelop to show up as a shared application:
There are 2 ways of getting this to work:

The Beta 5 method

• Uninstall any FlashDevelop you have installed
• Download and install FD3 beta 5 (yes, that's beta #5)
• Run FD beta 5
• In Parallels menu: Applications -> Shared Windows Applications -> Populate
• Quit and uninstall beta 5
• Install latest release

Hacking an existing application
Please check out Stevens post on how to hack an existing application into an FD application:
http://www.flashdevelop.org/community/viewtopic.php?f=9&t=3581


0. Prerequisites

• Flash CS 3 or 4 on OS X (this guide may work on older versions as well, but I can't verify that)
• Parallels Desktop 3 or 4 running Windows XP (preferably with the latest updates installed)
• FlashDevelop 3 beta (I use beta 9)

1. Avast! Antivirus (and possibly other AV's?)
This step is optional. If your AV does not create trouble for you: great! Otherwise...
It seems Avast! Antivirus likes my processor so much it wants to be with it all the time, 100%. That along with their On-Access protection seems to make FlashDevelop unresponsive at times. Turning off Avast! solves the problem immediately. I disabled Avast! and set the network to private mode.

In Parallels you don't actualle need the network to work with .as files on your mac. In the Parallels menu select: Devices -> Network Adapter 1 -> Disconnect. You could also select "Host-only networking", which will create a private network with your mac only, and not the Internet. This means that the Virtual Machine cannot connect to the Internet and should be safe enough from Viruses etc.


2. Parallels Tools
If you have not already installed Parallels Tools, do it now. It's located in the Parallels menu: Actions -> Install Parallels Tools. After installing the tools you should have an icon on your windows desktop called "Parallels Shared Folders" that points to "\\.psf". If not, run the installer again and pay attention


3. Map a network drive to your work directory
On my mac I have a folder called "work" in my home-directory where i keep all my work. To make it easy to access, I'll create a mapped network drive that points to that folder. Open up the windows explorer in Windows XP (My computer) and select Tools -> Map Network Drive in the menu.

Select any drive letter you like and then click Browse. In the new window that opens up, expand: Entire network -> Parallels shared folders -> \\.psf -> .Home. You are now browsing your "home"-folder on your mac. Now browse to the folder where you keep your work and make sure it's selected (so that the text on the folder is white with a blue background) and click OK.

Make sure "Reconnect at logon" is checked and click Finish.


4. Classpaths
In FlashDevelop, press CTRL+F9 to enter Global Classpaths. In the dropdown select the actionscript version for which to add classpaths, and then click Add classpath. Expand My computer and you should see your brand new mapped network drive. Now just browse to where you keep your classes and click OK. You can add as many classpaths as you like from this point.


5. Export flash from FlashDevelop
This is a real timesaver. This enables you to hit F6 inside FlashDevelop to command Flash on OS X to preview your flash without having to switch to Flash and pressing CMD+ENTER.

If you installed Parallels Toos correctly you should have a folder called "Parallels Shared Applications" in your start menu under "All programs". Here you should find most of your OS X applications. Locate "Adobe Flash CS3 (Mac)" and right-click it. Select "Properties" in the context menu.

The target should point to something like:
"C:\Documents and Settings\Administrator\Application Data\Parallels\Shared Applications\Adobe Flash CS3 (Mac).exe"

Copy this path and return to FlashDevelop. Press F10 to open program settings. Under plugins, locate and click ASCompletion. On the right you should be able to find an entry thats called Flash IDE and under that Path to Flash IDE. Place the cursor in the textfield next to it and paste the previously copied path.

Click Close and you're done Now you can press F6 to preview your flash movie from FlashDevelop.

If this does not work
This may solve the problem with foreing characters interfering with FlashDevelop when pressing F6 to export. I can't verify that it actually works, but it's worth a shot.

Copy C:\Documents and Settings\Administrator\Application Data\Parallels\Shared Applications\Adobe Flash CS3 (Mac).exe (path may be different depending on your locale) and paste it directly in C:\. Rename it to flash.exe. You should now have a file that is called "flash.exe" directly in "C:".

Enter FlashDevelop and press F10 to open program settings. Under plugins, locate and click ASCompletion. Enter C:\flash.exe in the field next to the entry Path to Flash IDE on the right.


6. Adding FlashDevelop to the Dock.
Assuming you did either the Beta 5-method or Stevens hack to get FD as a shared application:
Open the folder where you keep your Parallels Virtual Machine Shared Applications (in my case: Documents/Parallels/Microsoft Windows XP/Windows Applications). You should have an app called "FlashDevelop.exe.app" in that folder. Drag and drop it onto the dock.

If you did the Beta 5-method (I'm not sure if this applies to Stevens hack) the functionality of the app is somewhat limited at this time; it only starts the app, but then holds no connection to it. That means that you can't see if FD running, and neither CMD+TAB to bring it to front, nor close it from the dock icon. Hopefully this will change in the future.

If you need a nice dock icon, you can get the one I use here:
http://www.rickardsjoquist.com/flashdevelop_dockicon.png

Double-click the png when you have downloaded it so that it opens up in Preview. Hit CMD+C to copy the image.

To change the icon on the dock, right-click the FlashDevelop icon in the dock and select "Show in finder" from the context menu. This shows the file in finder. Now right-click the FlashDevelop.exe.app in finder and select Get info from the context menu.

At the very top left of the window that opens up there is a small FD-Icon. Left-click it once to mark it (a small blue border appears around it) and hit CMD+V to paste the image in the clipboard. If you did it right the icon should be changed.


7. Making FlashDevelop the default editor for your actionscript files
This is the easiest part. In finder, locate an .as file. Right-click it and select Get info from the context menu. About halfway down the window that opens there is a small dropdown named Open with:. Select FlashDevelop from the dropdown. Now click the Change all button directly under the dropdown and all your .as files should open in FlashDevelop when you double-click them.


That's it. You should now have a fully-working OS X-Flash + Parallels-Windows-FD work environment

I got Flash Develop working fine, but I didn't think it was possible to get the quick export (F6) to work. Cant wait to try this. Thanks for the tip!

I just want to say thank you so much for posting this because its such an amazing alternative for people working on macs. I'm having trouble, however, when I attempt to check the syntax. It asked me to either set it to use Flex, or to configure the IDE path to flash in the ASCompletion section. I can hit F6 to preview the swf in OSX Flash, but I can't check the syntax with the specified class path. Any suggestions? Thanks a ton!

Check syntax uses a library which can be found in Flash CS3 or the free Flex SDK. The problem with Mac OS is that I suppose the "shared applications" is not really organized as FD is expecting, so I suggest you download and unzip the Flex SDK somewhere in your Windows system and set its path in the program settings (ASCompletion). Also make sure you have the latest Windows Java runtime installed (remove older versions).

I really want to make this work, but im having a lot of trouble...

Point 2.
I did everything mentioned here but I get this error when I press F6:
Parallels Desktop cannot open file C:\Documents and Settings\Administrador\ConfiguracioÌ

[quote="li666"]Point 2.
I did everything mentioned here but I get this error when I press F6:
Parallels Desktop cannot open file C:\Documents and Settings\Administrador\ConfiguracioÌ

If you are having issues mapping CTRL-ENTER, you can use this keyboard shortcut helper program for OSX called Butler: http://www.versiontracker.com/dyn/moreinfo/macosx/20035

There's another one for Windows called http://www.autohotkey.com/ that is rather awesome for automation scripting and hotkey assigning.

Hi, first I have to excuse me for my bad english.

I'm searching now for a hole day but I can't find a good free flash developers IDE for mac. So I installed parallels and flashdevelop. The only problem is that I have oly one copy of flash CS3 (mac version). So I need to use that version. Now I tougth that it was possible to use that but it isn't..

I tried a few methods:
1) parallels shared applications -> flash (mac) -> properties and copied that path.. it doesn't work
2) shared my programs dir on my mac and select the path of flash c3 also no result.

I think that i know the problem, the directory structure for flash is difrent. Anyone that know a solution or can write a plugin for it.

This is a problem for many mac users

Thanks,

Stef

Hi, I am about to buy my first mac so I've been looking a lot into parallels and VMWare. So far, I had decided to buy VMWare.

Does anyone know if VMWare Fusion is capable of doing everything that Parallels can?

ie: Mapping mac folder to windows drive, Sharing applications from mac to Windows, etc...

This would be a big deal as I really rely on flashdevelop.

Thanks for the post btw! really good to know.

The path looks like this for me:

C:\Documents and Settings\Administrator\Application Data\Parallels\Shared Applications\Adobe Flash CS3 (Mac).exe

It might be different on your computer, and I have only tried this with CS 3, so I have no idea if it works with older versions.

Make sure you copy the whole path (and not the quotes that surronds the path in the properties dialog) and paste it into the correct field in Flashdevelop:

Tools (in the top menu) -> Program Settings -> AS Completion (on the left) -> Path to flash IDE (on the right)

I don't think it's possible to enter the path to Flash in the Applications directory on your mac, since you run Flashdevelop on Windows, and Windows can't run OSX applications, which by the way is the entire point of this thread

If it still doesn't work, try going through the guide again and make sure you do everything as I described it. If that doesn't help I'm out of options I'm afraid.

Has anyone else had this problem, and if so; what did you do to solve it?

Another option is DoubleCommand ( http://doublecommand.sourceforge.net/ ) which is good for Windows switchers who (like myself ) doesn't feel all that comfortable with OS X's idea of the HOME/END functionality (and other mappings).

[quote="li666"]
I did everything mentioned here but I get this error when I press F6:
Parallels Desktop cannot open file C:\Documents and Settings\Administrador\ConfiguracioÌ

I cannot get FlashDevelop to show up in the list of Windows Shared Applications in Parallels. The installers show up, but not the actual application. Without this, I cannot associate .as files with FlashDevelop or put it in my taskbar.

Brand spankin new install of Parallels on Leopard, Windows XP SP3 with .NET 3.5, Java 1.6 and Flash Develop Beta 8.

I have the same issue, with the same specs as Steven.

Davie

I'm running FD on VMWare Fusion, and as of now I'm really satisfied.
Actually I tested both Fusion and Paralles and I feel like Fusion works faster, plus it beautifully configured my Boot Camp partition to work as a virtual machine.

Mapping folders to windows drive works without any problems. In 2.0, Fusion can share applications betwen Mac and Windows so it's possible to open .as files with FD. However support is still not perfect, so it's impossible to run Flash IDE through FD like Rickard Sjöquist showed in 5.