Where’s the Flex Plug-in for Eclipse 3.5?

Eclipse + Flex = X

Over 7 months after Eclipse 3.5 (Galileo) was released, Adobe still has not released an update for its popular Flex Builder 3 plug-in that would make it compatible with the most recent version of Eclipse. Those of us who rely on the plug-in for Flex/Air development are still stuck using Eclipse 3.4 (Ganymede), or trying a number of manual install attempts, described here and here, neither of which worked for me. Ultimately, though, I’m not fond of hacky solutions for production-level products that I pay good money for.

Adobe has informally acknowledged the issue via its bug-tracking system, FB-21284 and FB-21025 (login required), although they have not publicly announced when a solution will be available. With the planned release of Eclipse 3.6 (Helios) now less than 5 months away, it makes you wonder when and even if the issue will be addressed. The Flex/Air projects have always been one of Adobe’s more grass-root movements, especially compared to its Creative and Web Suite products, and it’s a shame they have let the developers down. I call on everyone to contact Adobe with your concerns about Flex, with the hope they will address the issue if they understand how many developers this affects.

Updated (September 2010): Since releasing Flash Builder 4, Adobe has updated the Flex Eclipse plug-in to support Eclipse 3.5. Unfortunately, Eclipse 3.6 came out in June 2010 and is currently not supported, so Adobe is already another version behind. Also, I recommend developers stick with Flex 3 for now, as the new version is quite cumbersome to work with, meaning you’ll have to stay with Eclipse 3.4 for the time being to develop Flex applications.