I cannot wrap my head around this thing

[ciacob]

I have this workflow, which does make sense in my head:

• create an empty GitHub repository.
• clone it locally.
• in VSCode, add the resulting folder to my workspace.
• inside the now-added-to-workspace folder, add the files that make-up my actionscript library project.

Well. For the love of God, I cannot make this work using your extension.

• First, it will not create a project in my folder: it complains about the fact that the folder is not empty. Why would it care? Of course it's not empty, it has a .git folder in-there.
• Second, if I manually create my src folder, and try to create there an ActionSscript library project, your extension does proceed, but:
  • it creates an ActionScript application folder, not a library (I do not have that option in the "menu").
  • it switches me away from my workspace, and into the newly created project, which has src for parent.

It is such a nightmare and a struggle each time I try to set up a new library as part of my workspace project. It is pretty much a struggle also when I start a new project/workspace. Tell me: am I an idiot? Because I am ready to accept that. But I cannot find a way to build an understanding around the mental model you used when you created this thing.

Thank you, and I appreciate any help you are willing to share.

Claudius

[joshtynjala]

The ActionScript: Create New Project command is meant to be used for, well… new projects only. So that's why it complains that the folder is not empty. It's trying to prevent you from overwriting any files that might already exist. This command is designed to start completely from scratch, and it's there to hopefully make things a little more convenient when all you have is an empty folder. If there's a .git sub-folder, it's not considered empty. I guess that I would probably never overwrite anything in .git, so maybe that could be added as an exception, but then I would need to be adding similar exceptions for every SCM system out there that adds its own special folder similar to .git. That doesn't feel right to me.

If you have an existing project that you want to import into vscode-as3mxml, you can use either File -> Open Folder or File -> Add Folder to Workspace. Then, you can proceed in one of the following ways:

• If it's an old project that was created in another IDE, like Flash Builder or FlashDevelop, you may be able to automatically generate an asconfig.json file based on the other IDE's project files (.actionScriptProperties and .project for Flash Builder, .as3proj for FlashDevelop). It will automatically prompt you, if that's possible.
• If there are no existing project files, you can add an asconfig.json file manually. The wiki has a page for creating library projects that gives an example that you can start from for your libraries. There are many pages for a variety of other project types.
• If an asconfig.json file already exists, then you're probably good to go by simply opening the folder. It is already a valid project. At most, you might need to choose an SDK.

So I guess the tweak that you'll need to make to your workflow is to start by creating the project in a truly empty folder. Then, run git init and git remote add origin URL instead of cloning.

[ciacob]

I guess you're about right. I should go for writing my own asconfig.json files, from scratch. Thanks for clarifying.