Loading external .swf's into one big movie, help!

Please, please, please!

I am doing a 100% flash website. The problem is, when I want to…update it, let’s say, I don’t want to work on the whooooole animation. Look at it this way: I am doing a website completely done in flash. Since this website will have some sort of news section and other mini sections in it, I don’t want to go over the whooole movie just to get something like a section changed. What I want, then, is to make separate .swf’s for each section within the webpage so that I can manage it easier. So, if you know, please help:) !

I want to know how can I do many different separate .swfs for each section or page in the website into one whole thing, like if you would do it with frontpage, you know, a different page for a different section.

Also, I want to put up my site on the net, so I cannot just link these .swfs from my hard drive, but from some server online like freeservers, I guess. But clear me up on that.

I know there are some tutorials out there, but I find them hard to understand–> I am an actionscript newbie. So, please, I’d really appreciate if you please me with a good tutorial or simply help :smiley:

Thanks:)

hmmm ok, for the first time ever, i think i can actually help someone on here… in fact, i’ve beenn worjking on my webpage and i just finished setting something like what you want to do up. first, make a blank movie clip… (just draw a square or something, rightclick on it, go down to the “convert to symbol” button, make sure “movieclip” is selected and name is “container”… then highlight the square and delete it so you’re left with a little white circle)… position the blank movieclip (white circle) at the top left of where you want your new movie to load into… ok, highlight the blank movieclip and open up the properties… where it says instance name, put in “container”… then, go the the button you want to initiale the loading of the external .swf file… put in this code:
on (release) {
loadMovie(“yourmovie.swf”, “container”);
}

put the url you want to load where it says “yourmovie.swf” whenever the button is pressed, it will load your movie…

*ciao,
Derek

Thanks! I am going to try it sometime later today. By the way, does this work if I put the webpage online?

Also, in the part where I specify the movie name (where you put “yourmovie.swf”) do I have to put the whole path… like C:\Program Files\m…?

Mmm, do I have to have a special directory where to put the files that I will summon up?

Another Question: How can I specify the limits of a movieclip as in height and width… Like, I don’t want them to occupy the whole space, but just…let’s say, a square in the middle. I want to make it so that square in the middle is where the whole thing will be… can I do that?

Thanks
:slight_smile:

Also, in the part where I specify the movie name (where you put “yourmovie.swf”) do I have to put the whole path… like C:\Program Files\m…?

No jsut put the path realtive to the main swf so lets say you have a folder with all the swfs to be loaded called swfs and your main swf is in the same directory as the swfs folder, so the path would be like this “swfs/moviename.swf”

Grim

Yeah… if you’re viewing yuor flashpage on your computer, just set up a folder with everything from that sitte in it… if you put it online, put the adresses of your swf files… for example on my computer, i put in
on (release) {
loadMovie(“yourmovie.swf”, “container”);
}
but online, i’d put in
on (release) {
loadMovie(“Http://www.mywebpage.com/yourmovie.swf”, “container”);
}

the blank movieclip is only as big as the .swfs you load into it… you make external swfs the size you want the stuff in the middle of your website to be… to set the size of a flash movie, click on properties and click on where it says 550 by 400…

Oh, I see… Thanks! However, it works only sometimes and with some swfs… that’s weird, but I’ll try putting the folder… :wink:

Just a few things:

  1. You only need One html page to display your main movie .swf on a browser … from there your main movie calls into play any other .swf’s either
    into clip(s) [to play within your main movie]
    or as _level(>0) [to play on top of your main movie, slightly diff. load method]

  2. Your paths to your swf’s need’nt be ‘absolute’ either on your HD nor online as long as they live within the same folder as your main movie does … only ‘sub-pathing’ must be supplied if the other swf’s are in ‘sub-folders’ … Also: for online, make sure you use / instead of ** in all your fileNames/addresses.

  3. …gotta run somewhere - finish my thoughts later

*Originally posted by farseer *
**Oh, I see… Thanks! However, it works only sometimes and with some swfs… that’s weird, but I’ll try putting the folder… :wink: **

Do you mean all the time with some and none of the time with others (???) … if so, make sure of spelling the names and that they are all in the same folder, and don’t forget your quotation marks in the script.

Another way to line-up and be sure of sizes and such is to dispense with the load into a clip method and use level stacking.

…On your main movie you would determine where your (loaded)content should be, create a “boundry box” of lines on a sepparate layer and modify that layer as a guideLayer putting it top-most over the others [& lock it] …it will only show on the working stage and will not publish.
… copy this guideLayer and open for new movie at the same stage size as the first and paste this as your first layer there [keeping it locked and on top] and then create your content within those boundries.
…Use:: loadMovieNum(“yourmovie.swf”, 1) in place of “loadMovie(“stuff.swf”, “clipName”)”
…Main movie plays at level"0", level “1” will lay on top of that with no background - just like transperancy film. Any further calls to level"1" will automatically ‘bump off’ the previously loaded swf and replace it with the new one. (The higher the level number indicated - the higher on the stack it goes).

  • takes longer to explain this one but I think it is easier to manage ‘after the fact’ … once you get the idea

I don’t get it…:*(
Thanks for taking your time, though. Does anyone here know of a good tutorial for newbie users, easy to understand and execute???

Thanks! :slight_smile:

Below’s a url to a tutorial which you may find useful. :slight_smile:

http://www.kirupa.com/developer/mx/full_site.htm

Thank you! :slight_smile: