ANT and release Flash Builder 4 standalone (eclipse 3.5.1)

Posted on March 31, 2010 | 7 comments

NOTE: The direct links in this post do not work, but read through the comments for possible solutions. Especially now that 3.5.2 is out.

Flash Builder 4 does have the Ant executable by default, but it doesn’t have the Ant UI (org.eclipse.ant.ui). If you search the web for how to get Ant enabled in Flash Builder 4 you’ll find steps for installing the Eclipse JDT plug-in. The steps also work fine for Flash Builder 4 Beta 2/1 and Flex Builder 3. The quirk is the release build of Flash Builder 4 standalone is based on Eclipse 3.5.1. In Eclipse 3.5+ the “Find and Install” plug-in process seems to have changed quite a bit and I couldn’t find the basic Eclipse update urls.

There is not default Eclipse 3.5.1 update tree to go and find the Eclipse JDT plug-in. Even when I added the “http://download.eclipse.org/eclipse/updates/3.5” site to the available update sites I couldn’t find how to install the JDT plug-in I was looking for. So I went looking for it manually and here is where I found it:

http://download.eclipse.org/eclipse/downloads/drops/R-3.5.1-200909170800/index.php

Go down to the “JDT Runtime Binary” section and download the appropriate file for your OS. Once downloaded go ahead an unzip the file. There should be a folder called eclipse with three folders in it, binary, features, and plugins. Its the features and plugins folder that we are looking for. First make sure you shutdown Flash Builder 4.

Then copy the files in features/* into your “Adobe Flash Builder 4/features” folder. Do the same for plugins/* -> “Adobe Flash Builder 4/plugins”. Restart Flash Builder 4 and now you should have the Ant UI available.

To verify it worked go to Run -> External Tools -> External Tools Configuration, and you should see “Ant Build” on the left as a external tool.

If someone finds the 3.5.1 update url that can be used within Flash Builder 4 standalone and the normal eclipse update process let me know.

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  • Jason

    Use the galileo site instead http://download.eclipse.org/releases/galileo/. You should see the Java Development Tools there.

    • http://www.renaun.com Renaun Erickson

      I am still not seeing the Java Development Tools (or JDT) when I filter on that update site. I see one under General Purpose Tools called “Eclipse plug-in development environment” but didn’t want to just try random plugins. Do you have the exact plugin name when using the update url?

  • http://www.joeyvandijk.nl Joey

    You can find it if you do:
    http://download.eclipse.org/releases/galileo > Programming Languages > Eclipse Java Development Tools

    And then you have the ANT tab available (after restart)!

    :D

  • Jason

    Under Programming Languages > Eclipse Java Development Tools. It might not display if you have the “Hide items that are already installed” option selected.

  • http://webtop-designs.com Paul Allsopp

    Thanks Renaun, I was missing all update sites after installing 4.0 release, and your post was the first one that I found.

    Thanks to the other guys for pointing us to the right URL.

  • Darryl

    Thanks all, the update websites worked for me! Such a pleasure after having all the updates broken in Flex Builder 3.

  • http://www.basholtrop.com/blog Bas Holtrop

    Thanks man, exactly what I was looking for. Maybe I should use the FlashBuilder plugin version the next time instead of the stripped down FlashBuilder eclipse version.