Flex Maven project compilation error: Global artifact is not available. Make sure to add 'playerglobal' or 'airglobal' to this project

1
votes

I am converting an existing flex project to a maven project using the IntelliJ IDEA. As per the R&D on google, I have added the pom.xml file and I have resolved multiple issues by adding the required dependencies. However, I am stuck at one point now where despite adding the required dependency in pom file, the 'compile' goal keeps throwing error.

Error:

Failed to execute goal net.flexmojos.oss:flexmojos-maven-plugin:7.1.0:compile-swf (default-compile-swf) on project TA_UI_Test1: java.lang.reflect.InvocationTargetException: Global artifact is not available. Make sure to add 'playerglobal' or 'airglobal' to this project. -> [Help 1]

pom.xml file: 

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<project xmlns="http://maven.apache.org/POM/4.0.0" xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance" xsi:schemaLocation="http://maven.apache.org/POM/4.0.0 http://maven.apache.org/maven-v4_0_0.xsd">
  <modelVersion>4.0.0</modelVersion>

  <groupId>com.test</groupId>
  <artifactId>TA_UI_Test1</artifactId>
  <version>1.0-SNAPSHOT</version>
  <packaging>swf</packaging>

  <name>TA_UI_Test1 Flex</name>

  <build>
    <sourceDirectory>src</sourceDirectory>
    <plugins>
      <plugin>
        <groupId>net.flexmojos.oss</groupId>
        <artifactId>flexmojos-maven-plugin</artifactId>
        <version>7.1.0</version>
        <extensions>true</extensions>
          <configuration>
              <sourceFile>Main.mxml</sourceFile>
              <debug>true</debug>
              <!--<swfVersion>11</swfVersion>-->
              <!--<targetPlayer>10.2</targetPlayer>-->
          </configuration>
          <dependencies>
              <dependency>
                  <groupId>com.adobe.flex</groupId>
                  <artifactId>compiler</artifactId>
                  <version>4.6.b.23201</version>
                  <type>pom</type>
              </dependency>
          <dependency>
            <groupId>com.adobe.flex.compiler</groupId>
            <artifactId>flex-compiler-oem</artifactId>
            <version>4.1.0.16076</version>
          </dependency>
          <dependency>
            <groupId>com.adobe.flex.compiler</groupId>
            <artifactId>mxmlc</artifactId>
            <version>4.1.0.16076</version>
          </dependency>
          <!--<dependency>-->
            <!--<groupId>com.adobe.flex.framework</groupId>-->
            <!--<artifactId>playerglobal</artifactId>-->
            <!--<version>10-3.3.0.4852</version>-->
            <!--<type>swc</type>-->
          <!--</dependency>-->
            <!--<dependency>-->
                <!--<groupId>com.adobe.flex.framework</groupId>-->
                <!--<artifactId>playerglobal</artifactId>-->
                <!--<version>4.5.1.21328</version>-->
                <!--<classifier>10</classifier>-->
                <!--<type>2.swc</type>-->
            <!--</dependency>-->
              <dependency>
                  <groupId>com.adobe.flex.framework</groupId>
                  <artifactId>playerglobal</artifactId>
                  <version>3.2.0.3958</version>
                  <classifier>9</classifier>
                  <type>swc</type>
              </dependency>
        </dependencies>
      </plugin>
    </plugins>
  </build>

  <dependencies>        
    <dependency>
      <groupId>com.adobe.flex.framework</groupId>
      <artifactId>flex-framework</artifactId>
      <version>4.6.b.23201</version>
      <type>pom</type>
    </dependency>
    <dependency>
      <groupId>com.adobe.flex.compiler</groupId>
      <artifactId>asdoc</artifactId>
      <version>4.6.b.23201</version>
    </dependency>
    <dependency>
      <groupId>com.adobe.flex</groupId>
      <artifactId>compiler</artifactId>
      <version>4.6.b.23201</version>
      <type>pom</type>
    </dependency>
    <dependency>
      <groupId>com.adobe.flex.compiler</groupId>
      <artifactId>flex-compiler-oem</artifactId>
      <version>3.6.0.16995</version>
    </dependency>
    <dependency>
      <groupId>com.adobe.flexunit</groupId>
      <artifactId>flexunit</artifactId>
      <version>0.85</version>
      <type>swc</type>
      <scope>test</scope>
    </dependency>
    <dependency>
      <groupId>com.adobe.flex.compiler</groupId>
      <artifactId>mxmlc</artifactId>
      <version>4.1.0.16076</version>
    </dependency>
      <!--<dependency>-->
          <!--<groupId>com.adobe.flex.framework</groupId>-->
          <!--<artifactId>playerglobal</artifactId>-->
          <!--<version>10-3.3.0.4852</version>-->
          <!--<classifier>10.2</classifier>-->
          <!--<type>swc</type>-->
      <!--</dependency>-->
      <!--<dependency>-->
          <!--<groupId>com.adobe.flex.framework</groupId>-->
          <!--<artifactId>playerglobal</artifactId>-->
          <!--<version>4.5.1.21328</version>-->
          <!--<classifier>10</classifier>-->
          <!--<type>2.swc</type>-->
      <!--</dependency>-->
      <dependency>
          <groupId>com.adobe.flex.framework</groupId>
          <artifactId>playerglobal</artifactId>
          <version>3.2.0.3958</version>
          <classifier>9</classifier>
          <type>swc</type>
      </dependency>
  </dependencies>
</project>

Things I have tried:
1. I have added the required dependency of artifact playerglobal as seen in above pom.xml file, and I have tried with 3 different versions of it (seen above in pom). However, none of them helps.
2. I have tried adding playerglobal dependency inside the 'plugin' node, and also inside the common 'dependencies' node separately in pom. However, any of them are not helping. [Reason to try both these things is that for other couple of dependencies of flex-compiler-oem and mxmlc, it was not recognizing required classes when the dependencies were added just in the common 'dependencies' node. When I added them inside the 'plugin dependencies', then it moved on from those errors.]
3. As per this article, I have also tried keeping the 'com.adobe.flex > compiler' right after 'configuration' node. However, that also doesn't help.
4. I am using Maven 3.2.5 right now, but I have tried with various other maven versions like 3.3.9, 3.0.5, 3.1.1 too. They are also not helping. (3.3.9 is not supported for flexmojos-maven-plugin 7.1.0 as per this article. It also says that maven 3.2.5 is working fine though. Using maven 3.0.5 says that minimum required maven version is 3.1.1. And using maven 3.1.1 gives same error as I am getting right now with maven 3.2.5.)

My SDK/IDE versions:
Maven: 3.2.5
Flex: 3.2.0
JDK: 1.8
IntelliJ IDEA: Ultimate 2017.1

Any help would be greatly appreciated. Thanks in advance.

2
mavenintellij-ideaapache-flexflexmojosflex-mojos

2 Answers

0
votes

I don't know to what extent you’re familiar with using Flex in the Maven world, but there were many discussions on what to do with Flex in a post-Flash world (I haven’t had to deal with setting up and maintaining Flex Maven-based projects in about 5-6 years now). Basically, Adobe didn’t want to publish their artifacts to Maven Central, they used to have their own repositories. Then Adobe disowned their Flex project and contributed it to Apache (if I recall correctly, not all of it, but most of it). The guys at Apache re-worked things to a large extent and have been the ones developing it now.

To be honest, I haven’t followed up on Flex over the years, as I think there is no point in using it anymore, as with HTML5, Flex seems as an obsolete technology. The world is no longer using Flash and this has brought a lot benefits to everyone. However, this is just my opinion and I’m not a UI expert.

The guys at Apache decided not to reset the versions and continue where Adobe left – just the artifact coordinates were changed. The groupId-s are now org.apache.flex* (you can check the Apache Flex dependencies published here), instead of com.apache.*. These artifacts are now available via Maven Central. You should switch to a newer version of Maven and use at least 3.3.9.

For more on the history of the project (which is actually quite important, if you’d like to get a better understanding of the dependency mess and what’s now a point of truth and what’s not, please check here and here). The Flex documentation is now on the Apache site. This page is perhaps the most recent and detailed one that I could find, although I’m not 100% sure it’s up-to-date.

You will have to do some further reading up and investigation, but based on your example above, it looks like you're using very, very old versions of the Flex libraries. I would recommend using Maven Central's search engine and searching for each of the artifactId-s and replacing them with the most recent ones and seeing how that goes...

Good luck! :)

0
votes

I have addressed above issue now. I came across some links which talked about mavenizing the Flex SDK, such as this and this. The second link is the one suggested by carlspring in his above answer; however, I could not follow its steps fully since the git URL mentioned in it is blocked in my company network. So I downloaded the code from the former link and created the mavenizer, and executed it as per the steps given in the link to generate the mavenized SDK. (I faced an issue in the mavenizer where the connection to external maven repository is done to check for updates, so I commented that code and created mavenized SDK successfully after that.)

After generating the Mavenized SDK, you just have to copy it in your local maven repository, and then the playerglobal/airglobal dependencies will successfully get resolved.

Note: In addition to the first link mentioned above, refer to this link as well, which has more detailed steps of mavenizing the Flex SDK. It helped me a lot in creating the folder structure properly.