I would like to compile my AS3 SWFs direct from Textmate. At the moment I am only building a single SWF as you would get if you published from Flash.
You could try the bundle help, or for a step by step intro on setting things up there's this:
http://flashalisious.com/2007/07/30/installing-as3-and-flex-bundle-for-textm...
and there's this to help you along with the bundle
http://blog.iconara.net/2007/10/15/textmate-flex-tips-part-2/
I would like to be able to build my graphic assets in Flash then write my code in Textmate and compile from Textmate and view my SWF and trace using Xtrace.
I've no experience using Xtrace, what does it offer over the console?
Could someone give me some pointers on how to do this, all of the AS3 / Flex bundles seem to want to create a whole Flex application not just the single SWF.
A whole flex application is, in most cases, a single swf, so I'm not sure what you mean here? As soon as you move on to how to build using flex and as3 you shouldn't need to consider the IDE you are using.
If someone could also point me in the direction of a step-by step tutorial for creating Flex Apps in textmate that would be super- handy too as I would also like to learn this at some point.
To the best of my knowledge there isn't anything specifically on the subject, I've spotted TextMate and the ActionScript 3 bundle being used in screen casts here (see the flash player 10 posts):
http://www.gotoandlearn.com/index.php
also by the same guy, and may help if you're wanting to publish using the Flash IDE - http://theflashblog.com/?p=376
Cheers, Simon