The title of this post may not be the most aptly named but the internet has “saved that spot of hair on my head to be pulled out another day”. As I’ve learned, other people have already gone through these obstacles and I am glad they’ve published their experiences. The following is a summary of my own experience.

Getting Started
Problem: Baby steps; Automating HelloWorld.swf; New to build automation
Solution: Learn to install integrated Ant for point and click building; Write a script to automate Hello World
Resources: Installing Ant - http://flex.gunua.com/?p=78; First Script - http://flex.gunua.com/?p=79

Script is too simple and the project is really complicated
Problem: The project that is meant to be automated requires a script more elaborate than compile Hello World.
Solution: Take something that has worked for someone else and make it work for you. Then tweak it.
Resource: http://java-aap.blogspot.com/2007_06_01_archive.html

Script blows up; Java Heap space error
Problem: [mxmlc] Error: Java heap space
Solution: Allocate more memory for Ant
Resource: http://soenkerohde.com/2008/06/change-eclipse-ant-settings-when-you-run-out-of-memory/

mxlmc barks about Embed
Problem: [mxmlc] C:\..\blah..\MyControl.mxml( Line 64 ): Error: unable to resolve ‘assets/icons/icon_alert.png’ for transcoding
Solution: Simplify by commenting out any CSS style tags to expose just the embeds in use. Remember to restore it back afterwards. Use the root ‘/’ operator as the start point of a reference for non-code assets; mxmlc compiler uses the project root as context for the base dir.
Resources:
http://www.webappsolution.com/wordpress/2009/04/22/dealing-with-embed-tags-ant-builds-and-paths-to-resources/

mxmlc barks about Locale
Problem: Error: Unable to resolve resource bundle
Solution: Incorporate locale/{locale} into the ant script
Resources:
http://flexonjava.blogspot.com/2008/12/flex-3-unable-to-resolve-resource.html