Introducing FLP Maker

FLP Maker creates complex project files in seconds!Do you use the Project Panel in Flash MX 2004? If so, then do we have a present for you!

We recently started porting a large project from Flash MX to Flash MX 2004 and the prospect of having to recreate the project's folder structure and add each .as and .fla file to the Project Panel by hand seemed almost as exciting as getting two simultaneous root canals while listening to endless tracks of Barry Manilow! So, instead, we wrote FLP Maker.

What does it do?

FLP Maker recursively adds all the .AS and .FLA files in your Flash project to a new Flash Project file (FLP), automatically mirroring the existing physical folder hierarchy on your drive. So forget having to add folders and files manually to the Project Panel (unless you're a fan of ancient history, that is!)

Installing FLP Maker

FLP Maker is a tiny Java application and should thus be cross-platform (if you have problems running it on a certain platform, please let us know.) Installing it is also very easy:
  1. Download the latest version of FLP Maker
  2. Make sure you have at least the Java Runtime Environment installed on your machine.
  3. Unzip the flpmaker.zip file into a directory on your drive.
  4. (Windows 2000, XP) Switch to that directory and run either w2kinstall or wxpinstall, depending on your system (Other) Add the directory to your Java classpath.
Using FLP Maker:
  1. Switch to root Flash directory of your project.

  2. Type the following into a terminal window / command line:

    (Windows) flpmaker [projectName] [rootDirectoryOfProject]

    (Other) java flpmaker [projectName] [rootDirectoryOfProject]

Both arguments are optional. Without any arguments, flpmaker creates a project using the name of the directory it is called for and using the same directory as the root of the Flash project. By using the arguments, you can specify a different project name as well as point to an alternative root Flash directory.

You can use the Other syntax, above, on Windows as well. We've just included a small batch file that saves you the trouble of typing "java " to invoke the Java VM each time (aren't we nice?) :)

We hope you enjoy using FLP Maker and that it saves you as much time as it has saved us!

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