WS-Blog

AFTERTHOUGHT is an amazing tool for debugging Flash movies, but it runs only on Windows and it needs .NET runtime. It seems that a Mac version will be available soon but you won’t need it. Because OS X provides a suite of developer tools such as Console which you can view the message logs of your Flash Debug Player in real time as well. If you are familiar with Terminal, you’ll optimize your debugging session as Mark Llobrera commented on Mark Walters’ Blog.

Configure your system as follows:

1. Install and configure the Flash Debug Player as described in my previous article “trace() outside the Flash IDE with tail”. Follow the steps 1 up to 3 from there.
2. Start up a Terminal window and change the directory: cd /Users/
3. Type pico .bash_profile to open Pico and add two aliases named trace and cleartrace inside your .bash_profile located in /Users/[username]/

   # opens "flashlog.txt" in Console
   alias trace='open -a /Applications/Utilities/Console.app/ /Users/[username]]/Library/Preferences/Macromedia/Flash\ Player/Logs/flashlog.txt'
   # clears "flashlog.txt"
   alias cleartrace='cat /dev/null > /Users/[username]/Library/Preferences/Macromedia/Flash\ Player/Logs/flashlog.txt'

4. Save your .bash_profile, close pico and the shell.
5. Open a new shell and type trace. The “flashlog.txt” will be opened in Console and will be logged in run time. For searching log messages type a word or phrase in the Filter field.

   

   For clearing the “flashlog.txt” type cleartrace.

Happy debugging