About b2IDE

b2IDE is a set of Flash AS3 component classes designed to be used alongside the popular Box2D two-dimensional physics simulation engine. b2IDE allows you to set up simulations visually in the Flash IDE, and automatically builds all the necessary Box2D engine objects based on your layout. It is intended to be quick and easy enough for rapid prototyping, but small and robust enough to use in final production content.

The philosophy of b2IDE is that it manages the mundane details of initializing your simulation's layout, and then gets out of your way. It does not attempt to add any new features that aren't part of the Box2D engine, and it doesn't attempt to manage your simulation once it's been created. (It will optionally set up minimal handlers to iterate the engine, update your layout, and handle Mouse Joints, but these are easily disabled if you want to do it manually.) b2IDE's goal is to make easy things easy, and otherwise not to interfere.

For example, hello world simulation was made without any code (except for the reset button). It uses eight MovieClips attached to b2IDE classes that represent the world, bodies, shapes and joints. Those MovieClips can then be positioned in the IDE, duplicated, resized, and so forth. There is also a more detailed TestBed example file in the distrubution. Please see the Quickstart guide and the API reference for more details.

Feature overview

• Provides a set of base classes corresponding to each Box2D physical element (worlds, bodies, shapes, and joints). As MovieClips extending these classes are constructed, b2IDE automatically generates the relevant Box2D engine elements and sets their position, rotation, and so on.
• Each class keeps a reference to its Box2D entity, so extending or decorating the b2IDE classes is a convenient way to make "actor" classes that apply custom logic to your physical entities.
• Provides a container class, which is irrelevant to the physics engine but allows easy re-use of components. For example, in the Theo Jansen walker demo (#7 in the TestBed example), the walker's leg defined only once, in a container, which is added to the stage six times.
• Uses an anchor class to specify the physical dimensions of entities. For example, a revolute joint can use an anchor to specify where the joint's constraint is located, and a polygon shape is defined by placing three or more anchors to specify its vertices.

One caveat: So far, b2IDE has only been tested with the current (2.0.2) release of Box2DFlashAS3. Results with other versions may be unpredictable.

That's it! Please grab the current release, try it out, and report any bugs, problems, comments or feature requests in the Issues tab above. Thanks for trying b2IDE!