How? I just simply watch whether you use Keyboard or Mouse to operate Flex Builder.

After work on Flex Builder long enough, Pros are the master of shortcuts. They usually press keyboard once to finish an operation (e.g. open a class definition, move a line of code up, build project, run project). While newcomers are struggle to move their mouse around to find something to click.

Knowing more keyboard shortcuts may no mean you have a better programming skills, but it makes you appear like a Pro.  In fact, some companies check it when they interview candidates. When I applied for a position in a big research institute, the hiring manager told me to do a complex task by using some tools. I didn’t finish the task on time, but still got hired. Later, he explained, the way I used those tools (using a lot of keyboard shortcuts, I guess)  made him believe I was a Pro.

Get the list of Flex Builder keyboard shortcuts

All right, so you want to become a Flex Builder Pro. Here is how you can get a list of Flex Builder keyboard shortcuts:

Within Your Flex Builder, Press Control+Shift+L

What you will see is like the below:

The next Flex Builder Pro

Now you have a complete list of Flex Builder shortcuts. Just try to incorporate more of them into your daily work. With the time, you will use Flex Builder like a Pro does.

Step 1

On the Flex Builder menu bar, Click File -> New -> Flex Project

Step 2

In the New Flex Project window,

1. Give a name to your Flex project. As a best practice, use Upper CamelCase as the name format (e.g. HelloWorld).
2. Choose the project location or use the default flex workspace.
3. Choose the application type: Web Application or Desktop Application. In our example, choose Web Application.
4. Choose the server technology (J2EE, .Net, PHP, etc.). In our demo, just simple chose None.

Click Next to continue.

Step 3

Configure the output folder for the compiled Flex application. Here we just use the default folder: bin-debug and click Next.

Step 4

Set the build path for your new Flex project. Build path includes: Source Path and Library Path. Those are for Flex Builder to locate additional source files and libraries(like swc) when compiles the project. In this simple demo, we just leave them empty.

By default, the main source folder is src, and the main application file is a MXML file named after your project name (e.g. HelloWorld.mxml).

Click Finish to let Flex Builder create a new Flex project for you.

Congratulations!

You have successfully created your first Flex project. Let’s take a look at what show on the Flex Builder after it.

As you can see, a new project (HelloWorld) appears on the Flex Navigator panel with four sub-folders:

• bin-debug – output folder for the compiled Flex application
• html-template – contains the html wrapper template
• libs – for additional Flex libraries
• src- the main source file folder.

Our main application file is HelloWorld.mxml and Flex Builder has already created a base code template in the source editor view.

You may notice that there are two small icons associated with HelloWorld.mxml.

The green arrow means this is a Flex MXML application and the blue ball means this is a default main application for your Flex project.