If you are a Flex developer then there is a pretty good chance that you are already using a powerful ActionScript editing tool that supports autocomplete and IntelliSense. If so, this article is not for you. If you are a Flash developer still shackled to the Flash IDE for code authoring, then this article is for you.

Autocomplete is when the code editor anticipates what variable, function, property, or method you are trying to type and gives you a convenient list to choose from. The Flash IDE has a very limited autocomplete built-in that by default will only work with code provided by Adobe during installation. Autocomplete, when done right, is invaluable. It can literally save you hours of time looking things up.

When using a robust API such as the ActionScript 2 and ActionScript 3 ElectroServer 4 APIs you will quickly go nuts if you have to constantly look up every class name, method name, and property. That is why we suggest using an external code editor such as FlashDevelop 3.

FlashDevelop 3 (FD3) supports ActionScript 2 and ActionScript 3, and handles autocomplete very well. By installing FD3 and adding the correct API to your classpath, you will be amazed at how much more quickly you can develop and avoid typos.

You can find the latest FlashDevelop 3 release here: http://www.flashdevelop.org/community/ under the releases section. To run FD3 you will also need the Microsoft .NET 2.0 Runtime. 

After you have FD3 installed you can create a new ActionScript 2 or ActionScript 3 project. Once a project is created you can add the ActionScript 2 or ActionScript 3 API to the projects classpath. Once that is done you will be able to gain the autocomplete help or browse the code.