I was skeptical at first, being new to the built on Eclipse IDE, though the interface proved to be very intuitive to the new user. If you're a Dreamweaver user, never fear, this IDE is a synch once you use it a bit.

There are two views, Source View and Design View:

Source View – If you're a coder, you'll feel right at home here. It has color coding, line numbering, line collapsing, tag hinting, easy tabbing features to separate your code and the list goes on. One of the features that amazes me is tag hinting for your custom classes. If you were to create a custom class (or component which would be a class) then by declaring it with a namespace or importing it, Flex Builder will automatically add it to the tag hinting along with all of the built-in classes, methods, properties and events.

Design View – Without a doubt, Design View simplifies building your interface. Being able to drag and drop built in components into your app, give you the ability to build your interface quickly while Flex Builder handles the code. Flex Builder manages layout nicely unlike the browser specific markup of the past. You can specify x and y coordinates, expand and contract using percentages and have components float based on constraints.

Debugging mode is an extremely powerful feature of Flex Builder. You can set breakpoints, see all variables and expressions. It also has the ability to step through the breakpoints.

There are many more features I am not going to mention in this review. I will say that if you plan on developing RIA’s, Flex is the way to go with increased productivity of Flex Builder 2.

Also, Flex Builder 2 is available FREE to educational institutions and students!

Andrew Maurer