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Flash newbie needs help with slow loading site

B

BigBoatBuick

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Jun 15, 2009
3
0
Hi all. I am new to Flash and web-site building in general and I have been learning while doing. Its fun, but frustrating. I really need some help, hope someone out there with Flash experience can give me some advice.

My problem is this: I built a Flash website, but it is painfully slow to load up (3-5 minutes via cable modem) when I visit the site (via Firefox, etc). Once it does load up, everything is fine with navigation. I'm having a hard time figuring out why its taking so long to load up on the web because, basically, I don't know how to trouble shoot. Hope you guys can help!

Details: the site is just a portfolio site with pictures and a few motion-things, no complicated animations. The swf file is about 9MB. I do have a flash preloader, but it doesn't show up until after the 3-5 minute "load-up" time. When I do the testing via Flash, its Ok and doesn't show the lag. But once I upload the website files and try to visit my website, the load time problem occurs.

My thoughts:
- do I have to purge my Flash file/library of unused images before creating my swf file?
- Is there a problem with my html code in my index file?
- because it is a portfolio site, I've got about 90 images on it, each image about 300-400K. Is this too big, or about right?

Please help! Sorry for the long email, just desperate for help. Thanks in advance for any advise!!!! Just in case, here is the html code:

<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Transitional//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-transitional.dtd">
<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">
<head>
<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=UTF-8" />
<title>Acme Company</title>
<script src="Scripts/AC_RunActiveContent.js" type="text/javascript"></script>
<style type="text/css">
<!--
body {
background-color: #000000;
}
-->
</style>
<link href="favicon.ico" rel="icon" />
</head>
<center>
<body>
<script type="text/javascript">
AC_FL_RunContent( 'codebase','http://download.macromedia.com/pub/shockwave/cabs/flash/swflash.cab#version=9,0,28,0','width','800','heigh t','600','title','Acme Company','vspace','100','src','development files/company site_AS2_2008 OCT_final','loop','false','quality','high','plugin spage','http://www.adobe.com/shockwave/download/download.cgi?P1_Prod_Version=ShockwaveFlash','bgco lor','#000000','scale','exactfit','movie','develop ment files/company site_AS2_2008 OCT_final' ); //end AC code
</script><noscript><object classid="clsid27CDB6E-AE6D-11cf-96B8-444553540000" codebase="http://download.macromedia.com/pub/shockwave/cabs/flash/swflash.cab#version=9,0,28,0" width="800" height="600" vspace="100" title="Acme Company">
<param name="movie" value="development files/comapny site_AS2_2008 OCT_final.swf" />
<param name="quality" value="high" /><param name="BGCOLOR" value="#000000" /><param name="LOOP" value="false" /><param name="SCALE" value="exactfit" />
<embed src="development files/company site_AS2_2008 OCT_final.swf" width="800" height="600" vspace="100" loop="false" quality="high" pluginspage="http://www.adobe.com/shockwave/download/download.cgi?P1_Prod_Version=ShockwaveFlash" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" bgcolor="#000000" scale="exactfit"></embed>
</object></noscript>


</body>
<center>
</html>
 
9MB is huge, I'm also starting to build my own website and learning on the way.
Most people on here are not keen on flash. I had an animation in flash that I was using but had to scrap it as it took too long to load. So I am now trying to learn code.
 
Your website is called Acme Company?

Your images are way too big. You need to optimize them for the web! Depending on their dimensions, none of them should be over 100k (and that's pushing it)

If you have a lot of images, consider loading the separate sections when the user requests them, not all at the beginning. You just build separate flash files and have the main flash file load them in when the necessary.
 
Take a good look at the loader class... this allows you to download images as the user requests them... you do not want the user to have to download all of your content before the site becomes visible...

no "site preloaders". Each image should have its own small preloader.

a loader can load images, or SWF files... this will allow you to separate up the downloads.

Note that due to a bug in FP9, images are not released from memory when you are done with them. For a site such as yours you want to target FP10 and use the unloadAndStop command.

http://gskinner.com/blog/archives/2008/04/failure_to_unlo.html
 
A few recommendations:
  1. Load the images dynamically from an external directory.
    ie: do not import the images into the FLA.
  2. Use AS3, and XML/E4X to organize the data for the site.
    You can write the XML in an external document and load it dynamically, or write it directly within the flow of actionscript.
    External XML is advantageous in that you do not have to recompile the SWF when you make changes to the gallery.
  3. Write the Actionscript in a document class, or on frame1 of the main timeline.
  4. Use SWFObject to embed the SWF.
    This would replace the HTML code you've posted here.
 
Dal123 said:
Most people on here are not keen on flash.
Click to expand...

Then let's hope they stay out of this thread. ;)

Talk about diving in at the deep end. You're going to need some help if you're really new and want to follow snickelfritz's advice (which is what I would have recommended too).

Some tutorial sites that come to mind will help you grasp the concepts of accessing XML feeds from Flash are:

http://gotoandlearn.com/
http://www.kirupa.com/
http://actionscript.org/
http://www.flashkit.com/

If you need help just ask. I'm sure there are a few Flash designers kicking around these forums....they just tend to keep a low profile. :p
 
personally i dont like creating websites in flash. thats not to say that if dont discreetly they cant look good. if doing a flash one, i will always create it in html first and then 'copy' it to flash. flash is able to let you do things that would otherwise would be a pain, or impossible in html.

dont make a flash site turn into something that users get fed up of. if they have to wait a long time for the site to load, it needs to be very good.

imho i would only use flash for video content, or other multimedia such as games.
 
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