# Pulling images from a folder -\> theory
**URL:** https://forum.kirupa.com/t/pulling-images-from-a-folder-theory/29523
**Category:** Uncategorized
**Created:** [August 27, 2003, 7:54pm UTC](https://forum.kirupa.com/t/pulling-images-from-a-folder-theory/29523 "2003-08-27T19:54:55Z")
**Posts on this page:** 6
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@jeremy](https://forum.kirupa.com/u/jeremy)
#### Post date: [August 27, 2003, 7:54pm UTC](https://forum.kirupa.com/t/pulling-images-from-a-folder-theory/29523/1 "2003-08-27T19:54:55Z")
I would like to create a swf that pulls images from a folder, creates a thumbnail for them and preloads them. This would have to work like a bare template that could pull 2 or 20 images depending on what folder it is placed in.
I’m not asking for code here, what I would like to get from you is thoughts on what works, and what doesn’t. paste code if you want to explain someting, but really I just want to be able to wrap my head around this, and then code it myself, and comeback here with specific questions if I run into problems. I would like to keep this to just flash and php if at all possible.
Thank you in advance.
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### Author:  [@system](https://forum.kirupa.com/u/system)
#### Post date: [August 27, 2003, 8:40pm UTC](https://forum.kirupa.com/t/pulling-images-from-a-folder-theory/29523/2 "2003-08-27T20:40:12Z")
-reading folder contents with php is easy, i posted a script for that in server-side
-thumbnails are useless, just load and resize, then when you want to show th pic full-size, you don’t have to load it again 🙂
-preloading…not hard either, depends on how you want to set this up: read in number of pics, and start preloading straight away, or on user click…but if you wanna show all thumbnails, maybe it is better to create a specials thumbs folder, load all these, and then start preloading the big ones while the user browses the thumbs… make your choices, check out [http://www.flashcomponents.net/components.cfm?nav=2&cat=0](http://www.flashcomponents.net/components.cfm?nav=2&cat=0) , they have some good ones, or [http://www.abrahamyan.com/navigation.html](http://www.abrahamyan.com/navigation.html) has a nice one too…
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### Author:  [@system](https://forum.kirupa.com/u/system)
#### Post date: [August 27, 2003, 8:47pm UTC](https://forum.kirupa.com/t/pulling-images-from-a-folder-theory/29523/3 "2003-08-27T20:47:52Z")
> _Originally posted by eyezberg \*
> [B-thumbnails are useless, just load and resize, then when you want to show th pic full-size, you don’t have to load it again 🙂_\*
> That’s the whole point of thumbnails: not to have to load the full-size picture 😛
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### Author:  [@system](https://forum.kirupa.com/u/system)
#### Post date: [August 27, 2003, 9:04pm UTC](https://forum.kirupa.com/t/pulling-images-from-a-folder-theory/29523/4 "2003-08-27T21:04:23Z")
yes, but why load an extra pic each if you can resize the originals in flash and load only once, if you set up a good, sequential preloader ( [http://www.helpqlodhelp.com/blog/archives/000019.html#more](http://www.helpqlodhelp.com/blog/archives/000019.html#more) ) and start with maybe 5-10 pics/thumbs visible, and continue loading the rest in the bg…
all depends on size and quality, if you’d be better of using a real small thumb for quite heavy pics, or just load once for medium sizes…
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### Author:  [@system](https://forum.kirupa.com/u/system)
#### Post date: [August 27, 2003, 9:35pm UTC](https://forum.kirupa.com/t/pulling-images-from-a-folder-theory/29523/5 "2003-08-27T21:35:41Z")
sorry, I should have said that the preloading/thumbnail was just for description sake, I am far more concerned with pulling the images from a folder and droping them into flash.
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### Author:  [@system](https://forum.kirupa.com/u/system)
#### Post date: [August 27, 2003, 10:13pm UTC](https://forum.kirupa.com/t/pulling-images-from-a-folder-theory/29523/6 "2003-08-27T22:13:47Z")
flash won’t create the thumbs itself - but photoshop batches will - and small 30color gifs don’t take too much up too much space. Not sure they can be dynamically loaded though…