Open-source ActionScript debugger-De Monster

Earlier this year, I reported a Flash and AIR debugger named Archropod. Here we mention that De MonsterDebugger is another debugger released this year to facilitate Flash, Flex, and air application development. To learn more about this tool, InfoQ interviewed De MonsterDebugger's chief developer Ferdi Koomen.

Koomen first introduces what is De MonsterDebugger:

De MonsterDebugger is a lightweight but fully functional Debugger for Adobe Flash, Flex, and AIR projects. It is fully developed based on Adobe AIR and complies with open source protocols. The two most important functions of this tool are inspection and tracking. With the inspection tool, developers can go deep into the running applications, modify attributes, and even execute a function directly from the debugger. The advanced tracking function allows the user to see the detailed output of any input to the debugger data. For example, you can track an XML document, view all nodes and values, or track a custom class to see its structure and attributes.

Compared with other similar debuggers, Koomen describes:

The debugger of Flex Builder focuses on mxml development and ActionScript development based on Flex Builder IDE. However, in De Monsters, we want to use a large number of customized components to create a pure ActionScript 3 project. Therefore, Adobe Flash IDE is our weapon, unfortunately, this environment does not have a good debugger. We also try to make De MonsterDebugger as easy as possible. Because De MonsterDebugger does not need to run any development environment, you can use it to debug a running application or website without changing its configuration or using a debugging player.

The most unique feature of De MonsterDebugger is its concise interface and active community. We carefully listened to users' opinions and implemented the most needed new functions, such as the memory and frame rate monitor we recently added. We use De MonsterDebugger based on a daily build library, because it needs to be stable enough to meet the development needs, knowing that no one wants to debug their own debugger.

In the De Monsters blog, Koomen also mentioned comparison with several other tools, such as X-Ray, Arthopd, Das Bugger, Whitefly, and Alcon.

Regarding the Open Source issue of De MonsterDebugger, Koomen said:

Interesting. To make this customization process easier, we are creating a module system for De MonsterDebugger. developers can create custom modules to expand De MonsterDebugger functions. In the future, we will also find a way to share these modules with the community.

Koomen and his team are working on the development of AIR 2.0 to make the tool faster, more modular, and support remote debugging. InfoQ will also follow up on their progress.

Opensource ActionScript Debugger-De Monster