Other application assets include images, fonts, movies, and sound files. You can embed these assets at compile time or access them at run time.

When you embed an asset, you compile it into your application's SWF file. The advantage of embedding an asset is that it is included in the SWF file, and can be accessed faster than when the application has to load it from a remote location at run time. The disadvantage of embedding an asset is that your SWF file is larger than if you load the resource at run time.

The alternative to embedding an asset is to load the asset at run time. You can load an asset from the local file system in which the SWF file runs, or you can access a remote asset, typically though an HTTP request over a network.

Embedded assets load immediately, because they are already part of the Flex SWF file. However, they add to the size of your application and slow down the application initialization process. Embedded assets also require you to recompile your applications whenever your asset files change.

For more information, see Embedding Assets in the Adobe Flex 3 Developer Guide.