In Adobe® Flash® CS4 Professional, you can create content for use as components in Adobe® Flex® applications. This content can include both visual elements and Adobe® ActionScript® 3.0 code.

Creating components in Flash for use in Flex allows you to take advantage of the flexible graphic design capabilities of Flash while still utilizing the capabilities of Flex.

In order to create Flex components in Flash, you must install the Flex Component Kit for Flash. You install the component kit using Adobe Extension Manager. Some versions of the component kit may not support all features of Adobe® Flash® CS4 Professional, so be sure to download the latest version of the component kit from www.adobe.com/go/flex_ck_en.

For more information about using Flex and Flash together, refer to the Flex documentation on the Adobe web site at www.adobe.com/go/learn_flexresources_en.

To create a Flex component in Flash:

1. Be sure you have Adobe Extension Manager installed. To download Extension Manager, visit the Extension Manager download page at www.adobe.com/go/extension_manager_dl_en.

   By default, Extension Manager is installed with the Adobe Creative Suite applications.

2. Download and install the Flex Component Kit, available at www.adobe.com/go/flex_ck_en. Be sure to quit Flash before installing the component kit. For information about installing extensions with Adobe Extension Manager, see www.adobe.com/go/learn_extension_manager_en.

3. Launch Flash. Two new commands appear in the Commands menu, Convert Symbol to Flex Component and Convert Symbol to Flex Container.

4. In Flash, create a movie clip symbol containing the artwork and ActionScript 3.0 code you want to include in the Flex component. The content must be contained in a movie clip symbol before conversion to a Flex component.

5. Before converting the movie clip to a Flex component, be sure that it meets the following requirements for compatibility with Flex:

   • The frame rate of the FLA file should be 24 fps and should match the frame rate of any Flex projects that will make use of the component.

   • The registration point should be located at the 0, 0 point in the movie clip.

     Note: To ensure that all content in the movie clip has a registration point of 0, 0, click the Edit Multiple Frames button at the bottom of the Timeline, select all frames in the movie clip timeline, select all of your content in all the frames, and move it to 0, 0 in the Property inspector.

6. Select the movie clip in the Library panel and choose Commands > Convert Symbol to Flex Component.

   Flash converts the movie clip to a Flex component, changes its icon to a Flex icon in the Library, and imports the FlexComponentBase class compiled clip to the Library. Flash embeds the FlexComponentBase into the Flex component SCW file created in the next step.

   Note the progress messages displayed in the Output panel while Flash converts the movie clip.

7. Choose File > Publish to create a SWC file containing the compiled Flex component. Flash also creates a SWF file from the main FLA file, but you can ignore the SWF file if you choose. The published component SWC file is now ready for use in Flex.

8. To use the SWC file in Flex, do one of the following:

   • Copy the SWC file from Flash and paste it into the bin folder of your Flex project.

   • Add the SWC file to library path of your Flex project. For more information, see the Flex Builder documentation at www.adobe.com/go/learn_flexresources_en.

If you are writing ActionScript 3.0 code to be used in Flex, you can place metadata in the code to embed external files in any published SWF that includes the ActionScript code. Usually, these [Embed] metadata declarations are used to embed image files, fonts, individual symbols, or other SWF files into the SWF.

Remember that metadata is “data about data.” You add metadata to ActionScript on the line immediately preceding the line of code that the metadata applies to. The compiler then takes the metadata into account when compiling the line of code that follows it.

For example, to embed an image called button_up.png that is stored in the directory one level above the ActionScript file, you would use the following ActionScript:

[Embed("../button_up.png")]

private var buttonUpImage:Class;

The [Embed] metadata tag tells the compiler to embed the file named button_up.png in the SWF file and that the file should be associated with the variable named buttonUpImage.

For more information about embedding assets with metadata in Flex, see Embedding Assets in the Flex 3 Developer Guide at www.adobe.com/go/learn_flexresources_en.

If you use a feature that requires the Flex SDK, such as [Embed] metadata, at compile time Flash prompts you to add the Flex.SWC file to the Library path of your FLA file. The Flex.SWC file contains compiled classes needed to support Flex metadata. Click Update Library Path in the dialog box to add Flex.SWC to the Library path. You can also add the Flex.SWC file to the Library path in the ActionScript publish settings later.