Major Description
Today's distribution and installation process on Linux is lacking. It is incomplete in these areas:
- none of SDK command line utilities is being registered for the fast access on command line.
- no cooperation with package managers (such as dpkg).
- the content is offered in single piece, while it could be divided into smaller parts and downloaded / installed separately upon request.
There are (or seem to be) legal limitations, which are beyond my understanding, but I hope this ticket will help resolving them.
Structure:
Typically packages are provided as:
- binaries.
- developers edition (or source).
- documentation.
Flex SDK is relatively large download, which may be divided into several pieces:
1. - utilities required for compiling ActionScript code, generating documentation, automatic builds (Ant task).
2. - packaging for AIR and mobile devices.
3. - framework of various ActionScript components, or rather frameworks.
4. - testing / automation framework.
I propose to arrange the packages thus in the following groups:
flex (group 1).
flex-dev (group 1 + corresponding sources).
flex-air (group 2)*
flex-air-dev (group 2 + corresponding sources)*
flex-framework (group 3)
flex-framework-dev (group 3 + corresponding sources)
flex-testing (testing framework and sources)
flex-doc (documentation including both the commandline utilities, the framework components, AIR / mobile utilities and testing).
- - I'm not sure about this particular part, as AIR on Linux was discontinued.
Suggested install would be: flex-framework-dev (this roughly equals to what is being distributed currently).
The flex package would take care of installing mxmlc, compc, fdb, fcsh and asdoc (not sure about the rest) with the rest of the binaries, set FLEX_HOME and FLEX_LIB and perform other checks required for the SDK to function properly (such as ensuring proper Java version). *-dev version would need to ensure proper JDK version and Ant.
Similarly, flex-air would install adl / adt.
Some things to wish for:
Man/info pages for command line utilities
Goodies (absolutely not obligatory, but good to have):
- syntax file(s) for Vi[m]
- eLisp files for Emacs
