# Problems in centering image
**URL:** https://forum.kirupa.com/t/problems-in-centering-image/185072
**Category:** flash
**Created:** [April 10, 2006, 7:20pm UTC](https://forum.kirupa.com/t/problems-in-centering-image/185072 "2006-04-10T19:20:29Z")
**Posts on this page:** 7
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@pram310](https://forum.kirupa.com/u/pram310)
#### Post date: [April 10, 2006, 7:20pm UTC](https://forum.kirupa.com/t/problems-in-centering-image/185072/1 "2006-04-10T19:20:29Z")
Hi all
I’ve been working on a dynamic slideshow for some time now. I create an empty Movie Clip imgMC and then load pictures into it. Everything worked fine when the images were all the same size, and the dimensions were hardcoded.
Today I tried the same thing with different size images. I’m calculating the position of my imgMC like so:
imgMC.\_x = (640 - imgMC.\_width)/2;
imgMC.\_y = (800 - imgMC.\_height)/2;
Say, picture A is currently loaded in imgMC and is 180 px wide. When I click on link for picture B (160 px wide), and do a trace on imgMC.\_width just after I do a loadMovie, it shows 180 instead of 160.
This basically means that the first time I load an image, there is nothing there, and it always shows 0 on trace. This really throws the X and Y coords way off, and my image isn’t centered on the page. Any pointers anyone?
TIA
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### Author:  [@Stratification](https://forum.kirupa.com/u/Stratification)
#### Post date: [April 10, 2006, 7:26pm UTC](https://forum.kirupa.com/t/problems-in-centering-image/185072/2 "2006-04-10T19:26:37Z")
You need to do an onLoad event for the clip, otherwise it is executing before anything ever loads as you’ve noticed.
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### Author:  [@pram310](https://forum.kirupa.com/u/pram310)
#### Post date: [April 10, 2006, 7:40pm UTC](https://forum.kirupa.com/t/problems-in-centering-image/185072/3 "2006-04-10T19:40:55Z")
Thanks for your reply Stratification. I’m a little lost, Flash noob you see 🙂
Should I put the code for calculating x and y pos within the onLoad event? I wrote an onLoad function, and traced the \_width, but it looks as if it’s never getting called.
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### Author:  [@Stratification](https://forum.kirupa.com/u/Stratification)
#### Post date: [April 10, 2006, 7:57pm UTC](https://forum.kirupa.com/t/problems-in-centering-image/185072/4 "2006-04-10T19:57:50Z")
Actually, thinking about it what you may want to do is set up an onEnterFrame function for the loading clip (or a container). Then test the getBytesLoaded against getBytesTotal for the image you’re loading. Be sure to delete the onEnterFrame once you’re finished with it. A rough example (pseudocode, not real code obviously):
if(getBytesLoaded == getBytesTotal){
calculate the size
delete the onEnterFrame
}
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### Author:  [@pram310](https://forum.kirupa.com/u/pram310)
#### Post date: [April 10, 2006, 7:59pm UTC](https://forum.kirupa.com/t/problems-in-centering-image/185072/5 "2006-04-10T19:59:07Z")
Never mind, I took your tip Strat and looked through Flash help. I’m edging closer to centering nirvana I think. Will post l8r if it works out.
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### Author:  [@pram310](https://forum.kirupa.com/u/pram310)
#### Post date: [April 10, 2006, 8:20pm UTC](https://forum.kirupa.com/t/problems-in-centering-image/185072/6 "2006-04-10T20:20:36Z")
Yippee!!! Thanks to Stratification for leading me to the correct solution :thumb:
What I was doing was creating a movie clip, and loading an image into it. Instead, I created a MovieClipLoader object. On the Init function of the loader, I could get the dimensions of the image currently being loaded.
So instead of:
> this.createEmptyMovieClip(“imgMC”, this.getNextHighestDepth());
> imgMC.loadMovie(sImg);
I put:
> this.createEmptyMovieClip(“imgMC”, this.getNextHighestDepth());
> var image\_mcl:MovieClipLoader = new MovieClipLoader();
> var mclListener:Object = new Object();
> mclListener.onLoadInit = function(target\_mc:MovieClip) {
> target\_mc.\_x = (640 - target\_mc.\_width)/2;
> target\_mc.\_y = (800 - target\_mc.\_height)/2;
> target\_mc.loadMovie(sImg);
> };
> image\_mcl.addListener(mclListener);
> image\_mcl.loadClip(sImg, imgMC);
I also changed every occurrence of the line
> imgMC.loadMovie(sImg);
to
> image\_mcl.loadClip(sImg, imgMC);
That helped me in centering my image without hardcoding. Hope this helps others!
Thanks again Stratification.
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### Author:  [@Stratification](https://forum.kirupa.com/u/Stratification)
#### Post date: [April 10, 2006, 9:00pm UTC](https://forum.kirupa.com/t/problems-in-centering-image/185072/7 "2006-04-10T21:00:23Z")
No problem, glad to help.