Flex Builder Annoyance Solution

One thing that has always bugged me about Flex Builder (or more specifically Eclipse) is that when you click the Run/Debug/Build button (or F11/ctrl-11) your project is always opened up in a new browser tab. It doesn’t take long until you realize that you have 20 tabs open – or at least in my workflow it happens!

So last night I built a Firefox extension that I have been wanting to make for a while. It’s called Prevent Duplicate Tabs, and ensures that only the most recent tab of a given url is open at any one time. After its installed, you will notice that there is a menu item in the Tools menu called “Prevent Duplicate Tabs”. By default it is checked, and if you want to turn the extension off, you can simple toggle the menu item.

This is my first ever Firefox extension. It was a bit of a pain to develop, and I now have even greater appreciation for the Flex documentation ;-)

Feedback is welcome – source is available by request.

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8 Responses to “Flex Builder Annoyance Solution”

Ronald Schouten said on April 1st, 2008 at 10:09 pm
The one snag I had was opening several Google Apps at once. For example when I tried to open Gmail, Google Calandar, and Google Reader simultaneously (Open all in tabs under bookmarks), the Calendar and Reader tabs were closed automatically.

Does the whole URL have to be duplicated or just the domain?
Jim said on April 1st, 2008 at 11:05 pm
It’s the whole URL. Keep in mind that this extension solves a particular problem during development and can be turned off. I will look into this issue though.
Collin said on April 2nd, 2008 at 7:45 am
Yeah - That would be the best if you include/exclude patterns for domains, similar to how the Greasemonkey addon works
Jim said on April 2nd, 2008 at 7:54 am
Collin - That is a great suggestion! I will look at adding that in a future release!
Lloyd said on April 2nd, 2008 at 11:28 am
I took this guy’s suggestion and use IE for debugging. Keeps firefox for me.

http://polygeek.com/477_adobeflash/flex-tutorial_i-actually-found-a-use-for-internet-explorer
jimmy fung said on April 2nd, 2008 at 5:13 pm
about:config
set browser.link.open_external = 1

http://blog.wheelerstreet.com/?p=126
asdf said on April 2nd, 2008 at 5:15 pm
didnt seem to work the first time..

http://blog.wheelerstreet.com/?p=126
Jim said on April 2nd, 2008 at 9:09 pm
hehe - sweet tip! Makes my extension somewhat (alright completey) useless - but hey, I learned a lot about making Firefox extensions!

This entry was posted on Tuesday, April 1st, 2008 at 8:19 pm and is tagged with Tags: adobe, extension, firefox, flex

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Flex Builder Annoyance Redux

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