How to Prepare a Workspace in Adobe Flex Builder 2

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Video Transcript

Now, let's take a tour of the application we are going to build. Launch Adobe Flex Builder 2. In this topic we are going to prepare our workspace.

In Flex Builder, go to the File Menu, and select Switch Workspace. In the Workspace Launcher, press the Browse button, and in the Workspace Directory window, scroll to your Project Files. Select the Project Files folder, and then select the Make New Folder button. Create a new folder called __workspace. Press OK, and now with that directory selected press OK to launch into that workspace. You will notice that Flex Builder shuts itself down and restarts each time you switch a workspace.

I will expand Flex Builder and for now close the Flex start page. Now we are going to import a series of prebuilt projects into this workspace, which we will be working with throughout the entire series.

Once again, go to the File Menu, this time select Import. From the Import window, select Existing Projects into Workspace, and then press Next. In the Select root directory field press the Browse button, and this time select the Project Files folder itself, not the Workspace folder.

You should see a series of checked fields appear from Part 1 Lesson 01, all the way through Solution P2 L05 or Solution for Part 2 Lesson 5. Leave all of these Projects selected and press the Finish button.

Open Project Part 1 Lesson 01. In this folder we are going to create a series of three linked folders to commonly shared asset files for all of the project files. In doing so we are going to use variables to refer to those folders so that all of the folders in our other projects will update as well.

First, right click over Part 1 Lesson 01, select New, and select Folder. In the Folder name field, type gallery, then press the Advanced button. Check the Link to folder in the file system checkbox, and then click the Variables button. Here we are going to declare a variable to refer to a folder so that it will be easy for multiple projects to point to the same folder, but abstractly in a way that would allow you to update multiple projects at once. In effect, as we are doing here.

Press New, and use gallery as the Path Variable Name. Place your cursor in the Location field, and press Folder. Go to your Project Files, and in the Project Files folder, select the sharedImages folder, and press OK. Press OK in the New Variable dialog and press OK in the Select Path Variable dialog, making sure that you have selected your new gallery variable, and then press Finish to create this linked folder within this project.

When using linked folders you will see an arrow icon indicating that that folder is a linked folder rather than a folder directly within the project. We are now going to repeat this process two more times; one to create a linked folder called data, and then to create a linked folder called ne_assets.

So once again I will right click over the Project, select New, Folder; this folder will be named data. I will click Advanced, Link to folder in the file system, Variables. Select New to create a New Path Variable, name this Variable data. For the Location field, press the Folder button, and once again navigate to your Project Files, open the Project Files and select now the sharedData folder, then press OK. Press OK again. Press OK a third time. Press Finish.

Now we will create the ne_assets linked folder. Right clicking over Part 1 Lesson 01, select New Folder, folder name will be ne_assets, click Advanced, check Link to folder in the file system, press Variables, press New, name it ne_assets. For the Location field, press Folder, navigate to your Project Files, open your Project Files, and select the _ne_assets folder. Press OK, press OK in the New Variable dialog, press OK in the Select Path Variable dialog, and press Finish to create this new folder.