What are all the differences between the Flash Debug Player and regular Player?

Question

Some apps and IDEs recommend installing the debug version of the Adobe Flash player. I know this allows seeing trace statements even when not running Flash via Test Movie, but what else is different? Anything?

Also, how can I tell when I am looking at the debug player running and not the regular player?

Thanks!

Answer 1

The debug player has several differences:

• You can connect to it with the remote debugger
• The (right-click) context menu will include an option to "Show Redraw Regions", which lets you verify how much of your content is being redrawn each frame
• The debug player will show a pop-up error message for uncaught exceptions (in the regular player they would fail silently)
• There are a handful of AS3 commands which only work in the debug player, such as System.gc(). See the System reference.

That's just off the top of my head, it's not an exhaustive list. Basically the debug player has a sprinkling of features to make it more suited for development, and anyone developing their own content should probably be using it.

Answer 2

I'm not sure the debug player is slower. It allows you of course, as you mentioned to see trace statements in flashlog.txt, it also allows you to see redraw regions by right clicking and selecting 'show redraw regions'. There are some apps like the De Monster Debugger (http://demonsterdebugger.com/) and flash tracer (https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/3469) that allow you inspect variables a bit more easily with the debug player.

Answer 3

Along with what quoo mentions, the Debug player will show a popup window with a stack trace for any uncaught exceptions that occur in the application (at least for AS3-based SWFs).

Answer 4

The debug version will be slower, and I think it makes it easier to inspect some of the variables while running.