Preload .swf Behind The Scenes

[senan]

I'm working on a project that starts with an opening .swf. When the user clicks a "go to the next page" button, there's a nasty 5+ second delay of white nothingness, even before the preloader for that .swf shows up -- and even then, the preloader is starting at about 50% (I suppose it would be worse if it started any lower

I'd LOVE to get rid of that giant white elephant if at all possible. I'm wondering (and I have looked seemingly all over for tutorials and/or forum threads) how I would have the initial opening .swf load, but immediately following, behind the proverbial curtain, preload the next .swf and have it be ready to rock once the user clicks the appropriate button.

Any help would be wildly appreciated! Thanks.

[anonymous]

To answer your preloader's delay question...

http://senocular.com/flash/tutorials/faq/#preloaderstart

To answer your second question, yes it's possible to initiate the preloading of the second movie, as soon as the first movie starts playing. But, depending on the user's connection speed, the size & content of this second movie, and the actual playing time of your first movie, the preloading may not be completed by the time you reach the end of the first movie... Only testing this on a slow connection (if you do bother about slow connected users...) will tell.

[senan]

Wow - who knew that the mc's that are checked for export for A.S./export in 1st Frame, would be the issue. It would never have occurred to me. Thanks a ton for your response and insight!

I see the alternative would be to create 3 frames, with the first being the preloader, that skips to the 3rd frame once loaded -- but in the 2nd frame, one would place each mc that is checked to export for A.S. & in 1st frame.
Is that to say, physically drag each of those mcs from the library onto the stage in no particular order as it will never be seen and just let them live on the 2nd frame?

[anonymous]

You can do that, or export then on frame 2, or use a generic preloader, within the first movie, to load your present movie cleared of it's own preloader.
With this same generic preloader, you can load any number of external .swfs, without the need to change any of the actionscript in the loaded movies, other than clearing out their preloaders.
Otherwise, you'll have to modify every external file's actionscript you'd want to load in.