IMPORTANT FAMES is not a fully open-source suite of applications. The current OSFlash recommendation is to use the AMES suite (ASDT + Apache Ant + MTASC + Eclipse + Swfmill)

A tutorial by Aral Balkan (PC) and Niqui Merret (Mac) and ASDT notes by Chrystophe Vergnaud (Linux)

Mac Note: Flashout is currently not cross-platform and we are not sure whether it is open-source. If Flashout is not/will not be open-source, an open-source Flashout replacement will be created for use in FAMES. For the time being, you can use ASDT in Eclipse on a Mac to develop but you will have to compile via the command line with swfmill and MTASC. For the time being, you may be better off using Make Xcode a Full Featured Actionscript IDE "FlaXIDE".

UPDATE: The current version of Flashout (0.2) claims to support MacOSX and Linux

You want to get started making Flash applications using open source software and you heard of FAMES = FAME + Swfmill. You know that FAMES is made up of several different tools and plugins for Eclipse but you aren’t necessarily sure how to set up your system. This tutorial is for you! It will take you through downloading, installing and configuring the various tools that make up the FAMES system.

If you already have FAMES set up, see the FAMES Tutorials.

1. (On a PC) You will need to download a recent JDK, unzip it somewhere to install it and set your JAVA_HOME environment variable (Start → Control Panel → System → Advanced → Environment Variables → New (under either User Variables for... or System Variables). Use JAVA_HOME for the variable and enter the path to the JDK Folder (wherever you extracted it to.)
2. Download Eclipse
3. Extract the file to install it.
4. If you’re curious run the Eclipse executable to see what it’s like and perhaps work through the tutorials on the opening page.

1. Download MTASC
2. • (On a PC) You will download a Zip file. Save this and unzip it somewhere nice (I have mine under C:\Program Files\mtasc).
   • (On a Mac) You have a double-click installer. Just follow the instructions and it will be installed into /usr/local/bin/mtasc.

ASDT is now updated through the Software Configuration Manager in Eclipse

1. Open the Help menu, and select Software Updates → Find and Install
2. Select “Search for new features to install” and select Next
3. Click the “New Remote Site” button. Use “ASDT” as the name, and “http://aseclipseplugin.sourceforge.net/updates/” as the URL
4. click Finish
5. expand the tree to find Actionscript Development Tool
6. click Next to complete the update process
7. Restart Eclipse
8. Go into Preferences → ActionScript 2 → MTASC.
9. On the MTASC preferences panel, select the checkbox next to “Use MTASC Compiler to check ASFiles”. Click the Browse... button next to “Location of mtasc.exe” setting and browse to where MTASC was installed to. On a Mac, use /usr/local/bin/mtasc as that’s the default folder the pkg installs to.
10. On the MTASC preferences panel, click the Browse... button next to the “Directory of Macromedia’s core classes” setting and browse to your Classes folder. On my PC, it’s at C:\Documents and Settings\Aral Balkan\Local Settings\Application Data\Macromedia\Flash MX 2004\en\Configuration\Classes, on Niqui’s Mac, it’s /Users/niqui/Library/Application Support/Macromedia/Flash MX 2004/en/Configuration/Classes.

Notes :

add classpath : When you start a new ASDT project, the current path – denoted by a dot (”.”)on Windows/Unix – is not added to your classpath. Go to Project → Preferences → ActionScript 2 Project Preferences and add “.” (without quotes) to your classpath.

add core completion : if the core completion doesn’t work. Go in menu preferences>general>workspace>linked ressource, click new button. Choose ‘core’ for the name and browse the path to the core classes. Refresh your project (right click on project folder), the ! on the core folder must disappear and a litte arrow appear. That’s all ;)

1. Download Flashout
2. The latest Flashout (version 0.1.7.9) is distributed as a zip file. Save this somewhere on your system.
3. Unzip the zip file.
4. In it you will find a file called Flashout.as and a folder called plugins.
5. Go into the plugins folder and you fill find another folder called com.potapenko.flashout_0.1.7.9. Copy this folder.
6. Paste this folder into the plugins folder in your Eclipse installation.
7. Copy the Flashout.as file (from Step 4) and paste it into your Flash Classes folder. On my PC, it’s at C:\Documents and Settings\Aral Balkan\Local Settings\Application Data\Macromedia\Flash MX 2004\en\Configuration\Classes, on Niqui’s Mac, it’s /Users/niqui/Library/Application Support/Macromedia/Flash MX 2004/en/Configuration/Classes. Ok, the files are in the correct places, now you need to configure it in Eclipse.
8. Restart Eclipse
9. Go into Preferences → Flashout → Compilation. Note: If you cannot see Flashout under Preferences (this happened to me on my PC), you need to start Eclipse with the -clean option (from the command line, type eclipse -clean) as it apparently doesn’t always update all plugins automatically on Windows machines.
10. On the Flashout preferences panel, click the Browse... button next to “Location of mtasc.exe” setting and browse to where MTASC was installed to. On a Mac, use /usr/local/bin/mtasc as that’s the default folder the pkg installs to.
11. Click the Browse... button next to the “Directory of Macromedia’s core classes” setting and browse to your Classes folder (the same one as in Step 7)

1. Download swfmill
2. • (PC) The latest swfmill binary (version 0.2.2) is distributed as a zip file. Save this somewhere on your system and extract it.
   • (Mac) Download the latest (experimental) OS X Binary from http://iterative.org/swfmill/pre/swfmill-0.2.2.3-macosx.tar.gz. Extract it and it should run.

Now that you have your FAMES system set up, proceed to one of the FAMES Tutorials for hands-on experience in creating some Flash movies.