Flash site preloading external swfs question?

[Schnebar]

So I have a site that is just a main page with 9 buttons. Each button makes a movie play.

Right now I have a preloader on the site (no external swfs) so it takes a while for some people with bad connection to start the site.

I could make all the movies load externally so when you click on a link it loads the movie then you watch it. Elimanating the begining a long loading time in the begining. The problem with this is that once the movie is loaded and the person is watching it, nothing else is loading because all the movies are external. So after that movie the user has to click on another link and waite for it to load. Is there a way to have it so the priority goes to the movie that the user clicks on. But when everything is done loading and say the user is watching the movie, the rest of the site loads behind the scenes? With external swfs or not.

So maybe like...

The main page just has one frame because all the movies are external.

When you open the main page all the external pages load at the same time. Like not one then another. Like all external movies at 5% then 10%.

Then when you click on a link to a movie all the loading stops and only the movie you are watching gets loaded quickly with a preloader. When it is done loading you watch it and while you are watching it, the rest of the movies keep loading like at 20% then 30%..

Thanks for any help. I am taking flash classes at my school and can figure out most stuff but I just need a little advice in the right direction.

I thought maybe some people on this forum I have a membership on might have some good advice.

If anything is not clear enough I can elaborate more.

 

[sepu]

so you want to load all your external movies at once ?
I think its that what I get from your thread ....

the whole point of loading externally is taht the user wait less time ... and he just load whatever he wants .. because if not he will be waiting forever ... if you want to load everything at once there is not need to make external movies.

 

[Schnebar]

so you want to load all your external movies at once ?
I think its that what I get from your thread ....

the whole point of loading externally is taht the user wait less time ... and he just load whatever he wants .. because if not he will be waiting forever ... if you want to load everything at once there is not need to make external movies.

Not really. Right now there is no external movies so it all loads at once and the user has to waite a long time before the site even is viewable.

This is ok but I was thinking that maybe there would be a better way.

Like having all of the movies load externally.

Then it defaults to loading all of the external movies but when the user clicks on a link to watch a movie. All of the external movies stop loading and the one they clicked on loads faster. After it loads and they are watching it, all the others movies are loading so after watching maybe 2 movies all of them are loaded.

Loading all the movies externally would be another option but then there would be a load time before each movie. I thought that after a movie loads and the user is watching it, nothing is loading and maybe something could be loading so the load time would be shorter.

Basically could I set all of the external movies to load to 5% then all load to 10% then when they are all at 10% all load to 15%.

But if a movie is clicked, all of the attention goes toward loading that movie. And after it is loaded and the user is watching it, all of the other movies go from 15% to 20% and so on.

I am sorry if this is complicated. Just happy for all the advce I can get.

 

[sepu]

Im not aware of you cant do that right now with AS2 focus just in one.
If you want to speed up the process of you loading you can use shared libraries and load external movies that is you best bet I think right now ...

What do you want exactly do ? Load external movies is the way to go .

 

[Schnebar]

Im not aware of you cant do that right now with AS2 focus just in one.
If you want to speed up the process of you loading you can use shared libraries and load external movies that is you best bet I think right now ...

What do you want exactly do ? Load external movies is the way to go .

Loading externally is what I was thinking.

So the main site loads up fast because it is not loading the movies.

Then if the user clicks on a movie a preloader comes up and it preloads then plays the movie. Then if the user wants to watch a different movie, they can click another button and that movie preloads then plays.



But I was thinking that using that method, there is a lot of downtime where nothing is loading, like when the user is watching the movie.

In that downtime could the other external movies be loading so if the user clicks on them they are already partially loaded?

Thanks for trying to understand what I am trying to do.

 

[sepu]

Im not 100% sure but I think you cant do that with AS 2 .... maybe with AS3 I havent had the time to take a look in depth yet ....

What you could do its use the movieClipLoader in you different movies .... create a listener and load you clips in different levels ...

Or have a master movie and load everything on there still externally and load you MC in different levels as well then you put the swf that you want load first. talking back to _level0 you master movie ...

I hope this make sense

 

[Schnebar]

Im not 100% sure but I think you cant do that with AS 2 .... maybe with AS3 I havent had the time to take a look in depth yet ....

What you could do its use the movieClipLoader in you different movies .... create a listener and load you clips in different levels ...

Or have a master movie and load everything on there still externally and load you MC in different levels as well then you put the swf that you want load first. talking back to _level0 you master movie ...

I hope this make sense

Well that sends me in a direction. I will look into that and now know what to search on google for help.

If anyone can elaborate or has any other ways that might be better I am still up for advice.

Thanks for the help.