Flash Flex Components

The integration of Flash and Flex remains somewhat challenging. They both continue to live in separate worlds (Catalyst seems as though it is a step towards bridging this gap). The integration is not seemless. One way I have mentioned before is to load a Flash swf in Flex then using eventing to communicate back and forth. I just came across the following video which explains how to convert a Flash application to a Flex component. It proved a little tricky at first, but when you have it working it is an excellent solution. The main steps are:

1) Download the Flex Component kit from Adobe.

2) Inside of Flash the applications class should be written:

package {
import mx.flash.UIMovieClip;

public dynamic class lessonNavigation extends UIMovieClip
{
}
}

3) In the Flash IDE menu select Commands -> Convert Symbol to Flex component. This generates a SWC

4) Copy this to your Flex project and add the swc to the projects library path.

5) You should now be able to access the component from Flex.