I’m pleased to announce the FlexLib project hosted on Google Code. This is an open source library of UI components for Flex 2. The goal of this project is to gather all the great components that people are releasing on blogs, Adobe Exchange, mailing lists, etc. and create a central open-source project that everyone can contribute to. Hopefully this will provide a central location for people to find custom Flex components.

What is it?

• It’s open-source, released under the MIT license (about as free a license as you can get)
• It’s on Google Code, which means SVN access for members, issue tracking, wiki, etc.
• You can contribute your code!

What’s in it?
We started off by contributing a few components to get the ball rolling. See the full list of components on the Google Code project page. The quick list of components follows: ConvertibleTreeList, Draggable Slider, PromptingTextInput, Scrollable Menu Controls, SuperTabNavigator, Alternative Scrolling Canvases, Horizontal Accordion.

But more important than what FlexLib currently has in it, is what’s going to be in it? And of course the answer is: everything you have! If you’ve been developing components and posting the source on your blog, we’d love for you to round up your collection of components and integrate them into FlexLib.

Why another place for components?
The question has been raised as to whether there’s any reason to create yet another place for people to find Flex components. We certainly don’t want to add to the clutter and just make another barely-used source for components. We’ve already got the Adobe Exchange, tons of blogs, and the nice newly released flexbox app that tries to aggregate these sources. So here’s my thinking:

• This is going to be a high-quality source for components. This means code gets reviewed by project members and components are well documented.
• We can build off each other’s code if it’s all in the same project. Component developers aren’t in their own little blogosphere microcosms, if we all have one source for everyone’s code we can all extend and improve the library.
• We can consolidate our effort. I know that I’ve spent time working on some component or another only to find out that some other Flex blogger has been doing the same thing. Hopefully this will help us coordinate and work together.