PrimalScript - The Little Script Editor that Almost Could.

If you work with Flash Actionscript or Javascript, chances are, you're pretty unimpressed with your "stock" options for writing code. I've recently been testing some alternatives to my usual hodgepodge of tools such as the built-in Flash actionscript editor, UltraEdit and a short list of other small text editors and debuggers. Recently I ran across two editors for Actionscript.

The first one, the SEPY Actionscript editor is geared only toward Flash development. It is a very promising editor that you might want to try that includes such nice things as code folding and brace matching. Unfortunately, the second time I used it, it literally destroyed one of my actionscript files and completely overwrote it with a blank file. I don't know how or why, I just know that this editor is not ready for prime time. Maybe in a few months, but not today.

This brings us to our second option, a great little program called PrimalScript, offered by the fine folks at Sapien. This program has just about everything an ActionScript coder would want. But's that's just the beginning. PrimalScript is quickly gaining a following as an editor for ASP, PHP, VBScript and most other scripting languages. For Actionscript 2.0, PrimalScript includes the entire Actionscript function list, making it exremely easy to find the proper syntax. It's got too many cool and very helpful features to bother listing here, so just do yourself a favor and download a trial version from their web site. Give it a whirl and see for yourself. Features such as matching braces, excellent syntax hilighting, function browsing, code completion. Unfortunately this program has one EXTREMELY large problem. It offers no word-wrapping whatsoever. I couldn't believe someone would spend so much time writing a script editor and then leave out the ability to wrap long lines, so I wrote the author to confirm this fact and sure enough, the program offers no word-wrapping functionality. From the author's response, there's no indication that it will be added. It's too bad, because I can't live without word wrapping and I also can't live without some of the cool features of PrimalScript, so I guess I'll just keep my copy of UltraEdit handy for when I need a better view of some of my more unruly code.

So, in summary, give PrimalScript a try, but stay away from SEPY Actionscript editor until they've got some more of the bugs worked out. And if you feel like it, please e-mail the primal script author and hassle him about adding word wrapping.