Comments on: Can Flash 9 preview compile the Flex Framework?

By: Andrew Csizmadia

Andrew Csizmadia — Wed, 14 Nov 2007 16:29:37 +0000

Thanks for the response, it really works.
I’ve done some experiences porting flex framework to flash, and had to say it could be succeed, but not the whole part.
For example the mx.graphics classes can be easily ported to flash cs3 compatible, and many other util and helper classes also.
What is the most impossible, is porting code what is related to the flex ui component framework, but in that case, you can grab the api/interface, and re-create it to flash compatible, but Adobe style..
For example i created a flash compatible drag-drop manager where the basic idea come from the air and flex drag-drop manager api.
I think the importance is in Adobe style, because i like the api’s what their programmer create, and in this way i’m more sure that my framework will be as4 compatible or like that.
At the end, i’m still not concerned about, that is it optimal that all the flex related classes are useless in flash, until you port the code to compatible, in my ideal world i can work with flash or flex on the same project, or related classes, not just with assets. Now its just halfly true, if true.

By: Josh Tynjala

Josh Tynjala — Mon, 27 Aug 2007 08:20:55 +0000

Andrew, it is possible to use the Flash CS3 components with MXMLC, but you’ll have to work a little magic. The warning you posted is nothing to worry about. It’s just a warning. However, when you try to run the project, you may discover runtime errors related to the StyleManager and other things of that nature. The Flash CS3 components are designed to be FLA-based. They’re supposed to have skins in the library of a FLA, but you can do one of two things:

1. Create all new skins programmatically and update the StyleManager (the fl.* one, not the mx.* one) to point to those skins. Might be bit of work, though.

2. You should be able to export any Flash CS3 component from the library as a SWC fo;e and use it in ActionScript with MXMLC. The skins are already associated with the component at that point, and they should be included in the SWF. (If you aren’t aware, you can right-click on a component and choose Export SWC…)

By: Andrew Csizmadia

Andrew Csizmadia — Sat, 25 Aug 2007 17:57:07 +0000

Hello!

Just for testing purposes I want to compile an Application+FlashCS3 Component-Framework with Flex MXMLC, so perfectly the reverse side than what this article is about.
My problem is that i got type errors like:
D:\SVN_CVS\FLASH\classes_as3_flex\fl\managers\StyleManager.as(97): c
ol: 39 Warning: return value for function ‘getInstance’ has no type declaration.
Has anyone experience in this? Should I continue the testing or I had to port the application to the flex component framework to compile with succes?

Regards
Andrew

By: julien

julien — Mon, 30 Oct 2006 06:40:26 +0000

The thing is, Flash != Flex 🙂 I’ve been using the free sdk for a bit more than a month now, a bit different at first but much more “developer” friendly. If i could, i’d never switch back to the Flash IDE.

Cheers

By: Fuad Kamal

Fuad Kamal — Mon, 30 Oct 2006 05:55:31 +0000

Man this just SUCKS. Flash 9 preview doesn’t come with ANY components and you can’t make use of the Flex component architecture – not even a simple TextArea control can be instiated from AS. I got the same compiler errors. So basically if you wanted to develop anything slightly usable you’d have to create all your own components in Flash or port the AS2 component architecture to AS3. What a waste…for someone who spent all his time developing in Flash IDE prior to Flex 2, it would’ve been nice to be able to utilize the F9 Preview for more than some theoretical code experiments.

By: Josh Tynjala

Josh Tynjala — Wed, 12 Jul 2006 20:15:00 +0000

On the Flashcoders mailing list, Mike Chambers from Adobe answers my question: There is not support for using the Flex Framework in an AS only project. While it is theoretically possible, you would have to manually bootstrap a lot of the application initialization code that Flex handles (something which would be rather complex). Source: Flashcoders.

By: Daniel Larsen

Daniel Larsen — Wed, 12 Jul 2006 19:19:47 +0000

I have been playing with this same idea for a few days, but alas, I have not been able to figure anything out.

They have all of the new components written in as3 code. You would THINK there would be SOME way to get this to work. I have tried all of the above before I found this post as well. Nothing seems to fully work.

Anyone able to shed some light? In the final BLAZE release, will we have all of the components that have been included in the flex framework? if not…..WHY NOT?!

By: Daniel Hai

Daniel Hai — Sat, 01 Jul 2006 00:04:21 +0000

I’m having the same sort of problems — it looks like it’s not even possible — browsing through the alpha directory under “Flash 9 Public Alpha\en\Configuration\ActionScript 3.0” — The playerglobal.abc and global.abc files are formatted completely differently then that of the imported swc’s.

Looks like we’ll have to wait and see if Adobe gives us a framework.abc and a flex.abc file.

I tried even pointing the class path to the source directory in the framework, but no luck (even though classpath seems to work with my custom classpaths)

very strange indeed.

By: Josh Tynjala

Josh Tynjala — Fri, 30 Jun 2006 21:47:04 +0000

Firdosh,

That’s a good idea, but I’m not talking about using custom MXML components. The Flex 2 SDK comes with the Actionscript source code for all of it’s built-in components, such as Button, List, Tree, etc. I want to compile that code within the Flash 9 preview. I would have used the SWCs, but Flash seems to disable the component picker when working with an AS3 project.

Or maybe you meant that I should make an MXML application so that I’m not working with the Application class directly? That’s certainly something I could try. I’ll keep you updated.

By: Firdosh Tangri

Firdosh Tangri — Fri, 30 Jun 2006 21:08:44 +0000

how about trying this. Make a simple empty mxml file
and when compiling make sure to have

–keep-generated-actionscript

turned on and then add the generated .as files to the classpath.

Just an idea 🙂

cheers 🙂
firdosh