Comments on: Flex Authoring for Flash (AS3 Project / SWC)

By: eRez

eRez — Thu, 12 Feb 2009 08:07:31 +0000

thanks! it makes sense and it even works.
now i have in flash MC with linkage ‘Symbol1′ (extending MovieClip), in it textfield ‘_txt’ and background ‘bg_mc’. i have in flex 2 classes: ‘Symbol1Template’ with 2 protected vars ‘_txt’ and ‘bg_mc’; and class ‘Symbol1Enhancer’ which extends ‘Symbol1Template’, in which constructor i create a new ‘Symbol1′ and then link its _txt & bg_mc to those in the template.

now it works.
thanks again,
eRez

By: crunchbucket

crunchbucket — Wed, 11 Feb 2009 17:22:11 +0000

eRez,

How about leaving the “Classes” in Flash as they are, extending Movieclip. (I think you are still doing this)
Then your Flex Code classes will have properties for a clip_mc and all of the elements within that clip.
protected var clip_mc:Movieclip
protected var textfield1_txt:TextField;
protected var textfield2_txt:TextField;

It will at some point (most likely the constructor)
assign the local references to the clip_mc’s elements
clip_mc = new ClassFromFlash(); – this is the “Class” in the SWC
textfield1_txt = clip_mc. textfield1_txt;
textfield2_txt = clip_mc. textfield2_txt;
(do this for every element in the Flash MC)

Now your Flex class can act as it is the Flash class via references.

Does that make sense?

By: eRez

eRez — Wed, 11 Feb 2009 13:07:32 +0000

hi,
though its been a while since this post was posted, i just ran into it now while looking for a solution for a problem i have. it goes like this:
i use flex to create and compile my projects, and flash to create graphic data. each graphic data is placed in a symbol to which i add linkage and then export it all as SWC, which i then link to my flex project so all the graphic data is available from within flex.
however, i have all those different graphic containers (created in flash), and for each of them i have a class (created in flex) which extends it. for example – a graphic container with linkage id ‘ProductContainer’, and then ‘class ProductContainerEnhancer extends ProductContainer’ (so that all the mc’s/buttons/txt’s within ProductContainer are available to ProductContainerEnhancer). eventually all those graphic containers have some properties and methods in common, so i thought that instead of having them extend MovieClip (as they do by default), why not create in flex ‘class ContainerTemplate extends MovieClip’ which will hold all the common properties and methods, and have every container’s base class to be that class. once i do that, the ‘ProductContainerEnhancer’ doesn’t recognize anymore all the mc’s/buttons/txt’s inside ProductContainer.
hope i made myself clear and that i’ll get any sort of help.
thanks in advance,
eRez

By: zack

zack — Wed, 22 Oct 2008 18:44:52 +0000

great explanation, thanks a lot!
This is exactly what I meant. This might take a bit of work trying out..

By: crunchbucket

crunchbucket — Mon, 06 Oct 2008 15:13:27 +0000

Thanks Zack.

From what you have told me. You might have luck getting in to Flex by the following.
1) create a new Flex project
2) copy your current project into the src folder
3) Remove the “Document Class” definition from the stage properties (in the props panel) of your Main.fla. Make sure everything you want to reference programatically is set to export.
4) Publish the SWC and move it to the /libs folder. (Libs is a sibling of src at projects top level). This makes Flex aware of those compiled elements.
5) Flex should find the code classes that you declare based on your package structures.
THIS IS WHERE THINGS MIGHT BREAK DOWN WITH YOUR CONFIGURATION OF EXTERNAL CODE CLASSES AS I AM NOT SURE WHAT YOU MEAN HERE.
6) Flex will find the SWC and hint its contents. I like to remove all the code from my UI SWCs by making all elements in my SWCs only be UI classes that extend Movieclip. There are many reasons for this, but the best on being that if you have code classes compiled into a SWC that are the same as the classes in your packages and you modify them, there will inevitably be some wasted time figuring out how to deal with that situation. I am not sure which one takes precedence, the one in the SWC, or the one in the package, but they have the same “path” as far as Flex is concerned.

Good Luck,

By: zack

zack — Sat, 04 Oct 2008 15:05:57 +0000

correction: compile all the stuff via an swc*

By: zack

zack — Sat, 04 Oct 2008 15:04:54 +0000

Nice article! Very interesting.

I have been developing my project in Flash for a while now, and would like to move it out as much as possible. Reading your article makes it sound possible, but I am not quite sure how to do it. I was wondering if you would care to give some advice. I believe my situation is very similar to others who are trying to find a good balance between Flash and Flex/Eclipse:

I have:
- Main.fla which holds all my interface and their layout. It also contains two scenes with a preloader-logic in the first .
- Lots of .as files, linked via the “Export for actionscript” option.

I would like to:
Move everything out and use flex to compile with all the stuff in an .swf. Is there a way to achieve this? Do you know where I should start looking?

By: Flex Authoring for Flash (AS3 Project / SWC) « Rich Internet Applications

Flex Authoring for Flash (AS3 Project / SWC) « Rich Internet Applications — Fri, 05 Sep 2008 16:30:23 +0000

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By: The Flash Design Guy

The Flash Design Guy — Fri, 05 Sep 2008 02:53:29 +0000

Thanks for the article. I’m slowly learning Flex and moving certain complex tasks from Flash to Flex and it’s good to hear that i’m doing the right thing on this