# Help me get my first 3rd-party component working?

**URL:** <https://forum.kirupa.com/t/help-me-get-my-first-3rd-party-component-working/320202>\
**Category:** flash\
**Created:** [March 16, 2011, 5:01pm UTC](https://forum.kirupa.com/t/help-me-get-my-first-3rd-party-component-working/320202 "2011-03-16T17:01:55Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 1\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![jasonfahy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/73ab20/32.png) [@jasonfahy](https://forum.kirupa.com/u/jasonfahy)\
**Post date:** [March 16, 2011, 5:01pm UTC](https://forum.kirupa.com/t/help-me-get-my-first-3rd-party-component-working/320202/1 "2011-03-16T17:01:55Z")

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Well, I feel like I’m walking into a brain surgery symposium to get help opening a box of Band-Aids…I’ve tried pretty hard to find tutorials about this but no luck. Maybe I’m the densest person who’s ever dared to start up Flash. 🙂

I’m making a scheduling utility for students in my online classes, and I went out and found a “Date Picker” component which looks nice. I’ve downloaded it, but I can’t get Flash CS4 to recognize it no matter what I do.

The picker came from [Google Code Archive - Long-term storage for Google Code Project Hosting.](http://code.google.com/p/as3-date-picker/)

First issue - there are a several different downloads. One contains only a file called Datepicker-v4.4.1.swc with a red envelope icon, the other is version 4.2 (I don’t really care which version I end up with).

The 4.2 yields a directory containing

> AS3-DatePicker-v4.2.as3proj,  
> SWCSettings.lxml,  
> a png icon,  
> and five subdirectories:

\asset(some png graphics and a couple fonts)

\bin\AS3DateChooserv4.swf  
\bin\as3-date-picker\_4.1.swc  
\bin\DatePicker.swf  
\bin\expressInstall.swf  
\bin\index.html  
\bin\live\_preview.swf

\bin\Flash IDE Component\DatePicker.swc  
\bin\Flash IDE Component\Flash IDE Component v 4.2.zip  
\bin\Flash IDE Component\Flash\_IDE\_Example.fla  
\bin\Flash IDE Component\Flash\_IDE\_Example.swf  
\bin\Flash IDE Component\property panel.png  
\bin\Flash IDE Component\READ ME.TXT

\bin\js\swfobject.js

\lib weener.swc

\obj(13 .xml files with names like AS3-DatePicker-v4.1Config.xml)

\src\DatePicker.fla  
\src\DatePicker\_swc.fla  
\src\live\_preview.fla  
\src\Main.as  
\src\caurina(several subdirectories containing .as files)  
\src  
id(a maze of subdirectories containing .as files)  
Sorry for the ugly information dump, but I have no idea what in there is important and what isn’t so trying to give you as complete a picture as possible.

The readme file says this is an “SWC component in Flash CS5”, not sure if that means it can’t work on CS4. It says…

> copy “DatePicker.swc” to  
> C:\Documents and Settings(REPLACE USER NAME)\Local Settings\Application Data\Adobe\Flash CS5\en\_US\Configuration\Components\

Close Flash IDE if already open  
Open Flash IDE and check the Standard Componenets in Componenets Panel

drag and drop date picker in to stage

🙂 enjoy  
I tried to do that, but my directory structure doesn’t correspond to that path very well. (I don’t have a Local Settings directory, first of all.)

Looking for something analogous on my WinXP/CS4 machine I ended up at C:\Program Files\Adobe\Adobe Flash CS4\en\Configuration. That didn’t have a Components directory so I made one, dropped DatePicker.swc into it, and nothing seemed to happen. (By that I mean, I started Flash, created an AS3 Flash file and opened the components palette, and nothing DatePicker-like was there.)

If this is really stupidly simple could you tell me how to do it, or if it’s really stupidly complicated could you suggest some tutorials that I could check out?

Cheers,  
JF