Question

I have two ActionScript projects in Flash Builder 4.5. The second project needs to use some of the actionscript files in the first project. Is there a way to do this without duplicating those files in the second folder? Is library project the answer? Any details appreciated.

Answer 1

I use Library projects for this type of sharing. It works well.

Create a new library project

File -> New -> Flex Lilbrary Project

Any files that you want to be shared can go into that project. I tend to organize it by folder, depending on what the classes do. (example: Views, Models, DTOs, Utilities, etc).

The output will be a SWC file in the bin folder.

Manually referencing the library project

If you aren’t actively developing the library project, you can build it and drop it into the libs folder and use the classes like you normally would.

If you are like me and you are constantly working on the library projects, then I like to set it up so that the projects actually reference each other in a way that changes to the library project don’t require a manual step.

Automatically referencing the library project

In the project that wants to reference the library project, do the following:

1. Go to Project Properties -> Flex Build Path -> Add SWC Folder
2. Add /LibraryProjectName/bin
3. Go to Project Properties -> Project References
4. Select the library project

That’s it

Once you set it up this way, you can share files via the library project. I do this all the time. Reasons you might want to do this:

Library Project: MyProject.Behavior
Web Project: MyProject.Web
Mobile Project: MyProject.Mobile
Desktop Project: MyProject.Desktop
Administrator Desktop Project: MyProject.Administrator
Testing: MyProject.Specs

As you can see, I can have several projects that all use the same behavior (models, views, etc).