Just one simple PRELOAD question 1

[ColonelBlue]

Hello, I have searched the forum and checked out the tutorials but I just can't seem to get a simple answer.

All I'd like to do is have one preloader ( with bar ) to load all my external swfs ( and jpgs if possible ) that make up the flash site.

So in effect, I would just like all my swfs and possibly external jpgs ALL loaded before the user sees the flash site.

Any Flash Experts who can please help?

So what should I do? Load all my external swfs in frame 2 and have the preloader in frame 1? But what if some of the swfs in frame 2 are not to be shown until a button or action is executed but I would still want them preloaded so the user does not have to wait when they do click a button?

Thank you kindly in advance.

 

[oldnewbie]

There's is no simple answer to your question...

If all your external .swfs (as movie clips...) & external .jpgs had been included in your main movie, one single preloader could of been used... But now you'll have to seperately preload every single one of them, before starting your movie playing...

Thing is, outside of the ease of seperately editing external .swfs, the use of external .swfs (as sections of your movie...) came about from the demand of users, to reduce the initial total downloading time and get something on the screen as fast as possible, and if you're going to preload all of them before your movie plays, you're sort of going back to square one, since some sections (the viewer may not even want to see...) will all be preloaded, at the head of your movie, rather than being individually preloaded only on demand.

Choice is your's!

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After 25,000 posts, banned on FK, but proud not to have bowed down to them!

 

[ColonelBlue]

Thanks OldNewbie.
But what if I wittled it down to preloading a few external swfs to the same question?

Would you be so kind to show me the best route if you know of one?

Thanks for replying.

 

[ColonelBlue]

Ok, guess you are busy.

 

[oldnewbie]

Preload any number of external movies in the same off-stage container, displaying a simple "loading message" or a more elaborate percentage or bytes count of each movie, one after the other, each one loaded on it's own frame, and the preloader moving the main movie to the next frame, when the previous movie is fully loaded, to preload the next movie.
Make sure your external movies have a stop(); action on the first frame so that they don't play until told to...

When all your movies are preloaded, your main movie should also be complete loaded, and can be told to play.

When encountering already preloaded movies, just re-load them and start them playing.

Regards. Affiliate Program - Web Hosting - Web Design
After 25,000 posts, banned on FK, but proud not to have bowed down to them!

 

[jstreich]

Just thinking about this a little bit, and I think it would be possible to preload other pages while the users surf the main movie. If they get to a section that isn't loaded yet, display a progress bar and some animation to amuse them. The only problem with this is that it gets really comlicated really fast.

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