I need some advice. I worked really hard to make this site, and it looks great on my system but it’s just too darn big I think. the swf is 160kb. If I use the “show streaming” and set it to a 56k modem, it sits and sits and sits at frame 27 while loading the majority of the swf. it’s made up of 5 fading in and out bmps set behind a mask. I know I could take away the number of bmps, but it would just sorta ruin the whole effect. I need feedback of some sort about size and what is “ok” vs. too big… in other words, how big a file is the biggest that’s acceptable…
Do you have a preloader on it?
no… i don’t… is that helpful? I have a small inkling how to make it, but not totally familiar with it.
Yes, preloaders are VERY helpful, because they preload an entire flash file before the viewer actually gets to see it, so there is no skipping or pausing or anything.
Preloaders are a requirement in the Flash world.
Simple Preloader:
http://www.kirupa.com/developer/actionscript/preloader.asp
Tad bit more advanced (shows percent loaded):
http://www.kirupa.com/developer/mx/preloader.asp
Another tad bit more avanced (shows percent loaded and has a load bar):
http://www.kirupa.com/developer/mx/percentagepreloader.asp
Cheaters preloader (will probably cause more trouble than it is worth, I hate this method):
http://www.kirupa.com/developer/mx/percentage_loader.asp
thanks! I’m gonna check those out tomorrow and get back with ya. 
Maybe there is still some hope for this !!
lin
I hope those links help you out man 
Good luck!!! :beam:
those were such helpful links. your own tutorial is just terrific. thanks again…
on to the next and similar issue. After the initial swf loads, this introduction plays. Following that, another swf is called. It’s not quite as big but still has a wait.
I’m a little bit fuzzy on this. Must I wait until the entire first swf finishes and do a second preloader for the next swf? or, must I wait until both big ones load with one big preloader (ugggh… much too long then)… or (hopefully)…
is there anyway to tell a movie to start loading in the background while the other one is working away at loading and playing? so that when one is done the other might be ready? All this might be wishful thinking I suppose!
If you are using loadMovie to call in the other movie, then you need to put a preloader on the file that you are having load in as well. One note about preloaders with loadMovie, when you load a movie into Flash, the _root is no longer the _root, so you will have to make it _parent instead.
If it is contained in the same movie, the preloader will take care of it all.
I did when I checked find that my second swf uses loadMovie. That fla… the root is only one frame long, but there are lots of things in various movieclips, etc.
I have been trying to add a preloader to this 2nd swf, but something strange is happening. I notice with the bandwidth tester showing, once I have added extra frames before the animation begins, even though these have nothing in them, the bandwidth tester shows it’s got roughly 32 kb or anyway something equal to the frame where i’ve now moved the whole of the actual animation. Even the preloader is taking time before it begins. What could be in these newly inserted frames? There are no actions or anything. As I said, I only moved everything to the right one frame so as to make room for a preloader…
any ideas??? ;(
Are you using attachMovie or attachSound at all?
Ya know, AS that pulls object directly out of the library by its linkage id that you set?
If so, this is what is causing it, there is no way around it, you can load the sound into the movie dynamically though, if it is sound.
the 2nd swf is filled with instances of a button that has a sound in the down state. I don’t know if that qualifies as attachSound or not. I don’t think I have any attachMovie code.
I checked in the sound’s properties and it looks as though it is 8k big. you think this is what it is?
How do you access the sound in the down state?
This may very well be the problem :-\
I’m not sure I can answer it since i’m not sure i completely understand the question. I have the sound in my library as a sound symbol. When I created the button (and, by the way I have two, not one buttons that I use repeatedly, differentiated by their color), in the process of selecting the up over and down state, I dragged the sound symbol onto the button for the down state. Hence, each time the button is pressed, the sound plays, anywhere that button appears.
The buttons are being used in multiple instances. At one time they were intended for dropdown menus, but the client wanted them all open at the outset, so there are many of these 2 different color of buttons on the first frame of the swf. Each instance has different consequences when pressed, but each has the same sound in the down state.
I hope that answers your question about how it’s accessed.
Answers it perfectly.
Since you don’t call it from the library there is no reason for it to delay.
Hmmm, this is quite a mystery.
So all you did was shift the frames and now flash is telling you that your movie size is higher and the preloader takes longer to show?
that bandwidth thing shows that frame 2 has 27 k to load. frame 1 (nothing in there) has 25… the numbers don’t exactly compute since it says the total is 53k but it’s close.
if I take away frame 1 that i added to create the preloader, then the only remaining frame says it’s 51k. Somehow, something is getting split, although i’m moving the frames over by doing this
select all frames, highlight, move them all over one frame. I have looked on the workarea many times to see if something is lurking there that i’m missing, but I don’t see it. …
p.s. thanks for your interest.
Hmmm, this is very odd.
I always found the broadband viewer to be a bit sketchy, but you also said that it is taking a bit for your stuff to load too?
If your stuff still loads smoothly then you shouldn’t worry about this little bug.
ok…thanks for your help! it’s greatly appreciated!!
