Choosing a Code Editor

Once Lime or OpenFL has been installed, it is helpful to choose an integrated development environment (IDE) with good support for Haxe and Lime development.

Although you can write code using even a simple text editor, a quality IDE can provide code completion (code hints), shortcuts to build and test your projects, and other tools to give you a great coding experience.

Visual Studio Code

Visual Studio Code is a flexible code editor with support for Windows, macOS and Linux, and is recommended for most developers. It is lightweight compared to some other editors (similar to Sublime Text), but is a mature open-source editor with support for our custom Lime extension, providing code completion and simplifying testing projects built with Lime or OpenFL.

Visual Studio Code does not require project files. Using the Lime extension, you can Open Folder for any Lime or OpenFL project in order to enable support for code completion and other features.

FlashDevelop

FlashDevelop is another excellent IDEs for Haxe and Lime development. If you are a Windows user (and perhaps if you are not), we recommend that you try FlashDevelop first to get a feel for what an integrated environment looks like. Many developers prefer FlashDevelop.

Lime includes FlashDevelop project files when you use the “lime create” command for convenience. FlashDevelop is free and open-source.

Sublime Text

Sublime Text is a code editor, with support for Haxe and Lime using the Haxe Sublime Bundle. Sublime Text is cross-platform, with support for Windows, macOS and Linux.

Unlike FlashDevelop, Sublime Text does not provide accurate code completion, nor does it support “projects” in the traditional IDE sense. However, Sublime Text is much stronger than a simple text editor, and is a good recommendation for macOS and Linux users.

Sublime Text is free-to-use, with reminders to pay for continued use.

IntelliJ IDEA

IntelliJ IDEA is primarily marketed as a Java IDE, but it has growing support within the Haxe community, including large teams, such as TiVo. The full edition, as well as the free community edition, support the Haxe plugin, which is not easy to install, but can provide a fuller native IDE experience for macOS or Linux users.

Other Choices

There are other code editors to choose from, include vim and up-and-coming Haxe-based editors. You can read more at http://haxe.org/documentation/introduction/editors-and-ides.html