Flex graphic assets: SWF or SWC?

Question

Which is a better format to store graphic assets for a Flex application, SWF or SWC?

Are there any real differences, and if so what are they?

Answer 1

SWC is what you use when you're looking for a library to compile into your app. You have access to the classes and can import individual parts. SWF is more likely what you're looking for when embedding graphics.

Here's the docs you might be interested in:

http://livedocs.adobe.com/flex/3/html/help.html?content=layoutperformance_06.html#223998

I've been having good success with SVG for images, but there's some caveats since Flex only implements a subset of the features.

Answer 2

I have no real reason for doing this so it may be incorrect but I usually create SWF's for things that need to be loaded during runtime and SWC's for things that need to be available for design time.

Answer 3

A SWC is simply a SWF and some metadata wrapped into a zip file. Other than the fact that runtime loading of SWC isn't supported, I don't think there are any major differences between using the two formats.

Answer 4

Assets in a seperate SWF are loaded and included at runtime.

Assets in a SWC are loaded and included / compiled at compile time.

You can also directly embed assets within the main app SWF at compile time (check out the Embed meta data).

Of course, you can also load individual assets (such as a PNG) directly at runtime.

As far as which is better, it really depends on what you are trying to do, and how the assets are used.

mike