If you were lucky enough to be at MAX this year, and even luckier to see the “Looking ahead to Flex Builder 4″ session, then you saw me demo ASDoc support in the next version of Flex Builder, code-named “Gumbo”. For everyone else, this feature is way too cool (and useful) not to know about!  First, we’ll see how ASDoc is exposed in Gumbo, and then we’ll talk about a new SWC feature that lets us embed comments directly in the SWC.

Can you see me now?

For Gumbo, we display ASDoc content in three places:

• Inline in code hints for MXML and ActionScript
• When you hover over a definition/tag, or press F2
• In the new ASDoc View

Code Hints
Now, when we show code hints, we also provide the ability to see the ASDoc comment associated with the specific entry that’s selected.  This works for any element in ActionScript or MXML that can have a comment, and is displayed next to the code hint window.  The payoff here is huge!  You don’t have to jump back and forth between code and help anymore…all the comments are right in front of you, and it makes it so much easier to dive into a new framework, or work in an existing one.

Info-Hovers
The info-hovers in Gumbo have been greatly enhanced to show ASDoc comments as well.  Now, any definition or tag you hover over will display its full ASDoc comment.  Even better, the ASDoc pop-up supports hyperlinks, so if the comment has any @see tags, you can jump directly to other comments referenced in the one you’re reading.  And like any good browser, you can browse backwards and forwards.  Oh, and code hints does this too.

The ASDoc Viewer
In addition to code hints and the info-hover, Gumbo also comes with an ASDoc Viewer.  Any time you click on a definition or tag that has an ASDoc comment in code view, the ASDoc Viewer will display that comment in full.  You can choose to have the viewer linked to your code, or to only open when you want it.

Wow, that SWC is fat!

In Flex 3, it’s was pretty easy to parse ASDoc comments from ActionScript and MXML source.  However, getting ASDoc from a SWC was completely impossible: the data just wasn’t there.  But with the new Gumbo framework, all of that is changing.  SWCs can now be packaged with ASDoc content that the next release of Flex Builder will know how to read.  This is how we’re providing ASDoc information for Flex 3 and Flex 4 in the preview release of Gumbo. Anyone who produces or distributes SWCs will be able to package their comments with their libraries, helping everyone who consumes those SWCs.

If you’re concerned about performance or overall SWF size, you have nothing to worry about.  While embedding ASDoc comments in a SWC will make it larger, it will not increase compile time or the final SWF size of your Flex app.  In fact, adding ASDoc to SWCs actually made our SWC reading a bit faster, but that’s a story for another time.  We’ll most likely add support in Flex Builder to produce these comment-including SWCs, as well as the ability to generate ASDoc…but like anything else, I can’t promise it if it’s not in the product already…I’d hate to make management angry

Well, I hope you like what you see, but this is just a small taste of what’s coming in the next release of Flex Builder.