Exclude(and ExcludeClass) tags SIMPLY influence the set of choices that are available in Flex Builder. They don’t exclude the classes from linking, which is a general misconception. There are MXML options to say “I WANT to treat this symbol as exteranally DEFINED” . Depending on how we COMPILE our application, generally the classes that are included are those that are referenced from the root application or classes, either directly or via some other class that is referenced directly or not from the root application or classes. The -link-report mxmlc option is very useful in that it tells us

1. what all is in our swf, and
2. who depended on each class to cause it to be included.

Exclude(and ExcludeClass) tags simply influence the set of choices that are available in Flex Builder. They don’t exclude the classes from linking, which is a general misconception. There are MXML options to say “I want to treat this symbol as exteranally defined” . Depending on how we compile our application, generally the classes that are included are those that are referenced from the root application or classes, either directly or via some other class that is referenced directly or not from the root application or classes. The -link-report mxmlc option is very useful in that it tells us