Re: FLASH: Same ol' problem

[Ken Lanxner]

On 8/15/00 at 6:12 AM, Tim Ryan <

timdigitalplanit [dot] com

> wrote:


> I noticed your flash site started playing the intro movie whilst

> loading at the same time....is that easy to do Brian????? Im not too

> clued up on flash so sorry if thats an obvious one!!!


That is the easiest thing to do in Flash because it is the default.

Unless you build a preload into your movie, it will always *start*

playing the movie while loading. Problems arise when the movie gets to a

section that has not yet loaded, in which case it will pause and wait

for the load to continue.


A good preloader will feature a short animation that we can view while

waiting for the main part of the movie to load. Keep the preload

sequence short and sweet so it doesn't itself add much to the download

time. And don't put any important content in the preload movie because

people on high-speed connections often don't see it when the main movie

loads quickly. It can be a short clip that can loop successfully (not

yet preloaded? play it again) or a longer clip that will take about as

much time as required to preload. And if you can design it so that it

fades seamlessly into the main movie once preloading is complete -- then

you really have a good thing going.


Even the simple message "loading . . . please wait" can be displayed

while preloading, but isn't very interesting and may lose you some

viewers.


Brian wrote:


> On the other hand, the movie starting before the whole thing is loaded

> causes problems on occasion, when the user knows where to go and

> inadvertantly tries to view things that aren't loaded yet.


This will happen when a) you don't use a preloader (which you do) or b)

the preloader is set to play the movie once a certain frame is loaded

and that particular frame just happens to be too early in the movie. To

play it safe, you can always make your preloader not play the movie

until the very last frame is loaded. May take a little longer to preload

but it will prevent the problems you describe.


Ken




---

Simplelives * Web design

http://simplelives.com 




~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

 Full flasher archive now available online at:

 http://www.chinwag.com/flasher/archive.shtml

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

To unsubscribe or change your list settings go to

http://www.chinwag.com/flasher or email

helpchinwag [dot] com