Optimizing Flash Sites

programming flash
1

Good Day all,
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[font=, Verdana][size=2]I’m fairly new to Flash, the site below is my second attempt at Flash. Thanks to this site and experts on this forum, I am now getting the hang of Flash Components, actionscripts, etc. At the moment my only problem is that my flash site ends up being slow when uploaded to the server. It takes too long to load
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[font=, Verdana][size=2][color=#606420]http://www.80sbabys.com[/color][/size][/font]
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I have a preloader as suggested by many Flash sites. Infact I used one of the tutorials from this site. But I think the problem is with optimization and how I designed it.

So my questions is how can I optimize this site to load faster? [/size][/font]

[font=, Verdana][size=2]I have several buttons, movie clips and played around with a lot with the Alpha effect. The pictures you see in the “pics” section have all been converted to “buttons” in order for them to be clickable.[/size][/font][font=, Verdana][size=2]

any help is appreciated.

Thank you

Also could anyone recommend a good book on Flash and Actionscripting?

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2

u could try this tutorial http://www.kirupa.com/developer/flash5/filesize.htm it will show u how to make your pictures a smaller file size while still looking good

3

all the techniques u use increases the file size so try not to use too many alpha
duplicate buttons (same one, instead of creating many buttons) try using a blank button and repeat its use. are your images Jpeg huge try making it smaller in size you only need 72 dpi resolution for pc and i think 96 for mac. images shouldn’t be larger tahn 320x240 but it is your prefrenece. hope that helps

4

oh i should say whenever you create a new symbol be t a graphic, movieclip, or a button it increases the file size unless you reuse the same graphic , movieclip, and button. hence using the blank button i suggested. All i can really tell you is to K.I.S.S keep it simple silly in the beginning than you can always add more things to it the spice it up

5

oh just checked your site out. the reason why it is taking a long time to load is because you are downloading all the songs at once. you should really import the song seperately. look for tutourials in kirupa for this

6

Wow. Thank you for your prompt replies guys.

Gupps I will take your responses into consideration and try some of those things out when I get home.

Will post again if I run into problems.

cheers…

7

It’s definitely the music. I’d also like to vote that you turn the music way turn to start with and have a volume control. I nearly fell off my chair when the song started.

8

Just an update folks,

I managed to remove the songs from the *.swf and stream them instead. And now it loads 100 times faster. Thanks a lot Gupps, Flash Gordon, blakeky3

Here is the code I used to stream the file and loop. It maybe helpful to those who like to search these forums for solutions.

I inserted this code in the Frame in which I wanted my song to play.

mySound = new Sound();

mySound.loadSound(“filename.mp3”,true);

mySound.onSoundComplete = function(){
mySound.start(1,999); //to make it loop
}

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