I’m writing up a flash website that does all kinds of craziness based on an XML file, and I have a small issue with loading external images. For one panel, (Only one panel is visible at a time, and when a new one is selected the old one gets remove()d to save CPU) I need to load about twenty images - approximately 200-300 kB - and that’s murder to wait for. Therefore, I want to make sure I only have to do it once; I want all necessary downloading to occur in the preloader stage and for the resources to just hang around and wait to be called.
Ok… but here’s the thing: the only API method I know of that allows me to say “this movieclip must show this image now” is MovieClip.loadMovie(), and it’s not as if I can load a movie, immediately remove it but keep a pointer, and then pass the pointer back to a MovieClip later.
Does loadMovie automatically cache downloaded resources, or is that maybe something the browser does? Am I forced to hide panels via panel._visible = false if I don’t want redundant downloading? Am I wrong when I claim that movie clips can’t exist without being a descendant of _root (i.e. I can’t just hold it in a variable)?
thanks in advance!
