preloader question

[mmezo]

hey all, i had a question about preloaders. im currently putting together a site that has a few pages with embedded flash elements - id like to use the same preloader for all the flash files.

i know i can easily just create a preloader for each file based on one common style, but i was wondering if there is perhaps some way to pass a VAR with the SWFs url from the page to the preloader, rather than hard-coding it into the preloder? or something to that effect?

[raydowe]

That is by far the best idea. What I would do is create a preloader that gets passed the url of the swf through flashvars, then loads it and displays it.

The best way in my opinion is to use Swfobject http://code.google.com/p/swfobject/

Just create and object in javascript like:
var myFlashVar = {pathtoswf:'myswfpath/myswfname.swf'};

and pass it in using 'swfobject.embed(a,b,c,d,e...)';

the passed in value can then be referenced in flash using:

var thepathtomyswf:String = root.loaderInfo.parameters['pathtoswf'];


The swfobject site also has documentation on it's use and the use of flashvars.

Hope that helps.

[mmezo]

thats funny - i just came upon swfobject while poking into flash version detection. i tried what you recommended and i think i have it working, thank you so much!

[mmezo]

Raydowe - i had one more quick question regarding this: is it possible either tell the preloader NOT to have a bg color (just use whatever is there or use the bg of the swf its loading), or if not that can i use flashvars to set the bg color of the file? the problem im trying to solve is that there are 2 different background colors the flash may appear against.

there wouldnt happen to be any list of common or acceptable flashvars, is there?

[raydowe]

http://code.google.com/p/swfobject/wiki/documentation

Search the page text for "color". SWFobject takes in a parameter that specifies the background colour, but I think that is just until the swf has been loaded.

What you would probably want to do is add another property to the flashvar object, such as:

{path:'Something, color:'0xeaeaea', somethingElse:whatever.....}

Then you can access this from within the preloader swf and draw a rectangular box to cover the background in the desired colour. You can even pass in a few different colours to draw the background, the load bar, maybe a colour for text...

[mmezo]

thank you for the ideas! that makes senses if the bgcolor attribute doesnt function how id like.

hey, one thing i noticed and cant seem to find any info on - swfobj wont allow the use of percentages for the swf size?

[raydowe]

I'm not positive but I believe you can the width and height property default to pixels but can be set to percent by using "100%"

[mmezo]

yeah, id tried that and it doesnt seem to work (maybe its a browser thing, but if it it doesnt work in FF...)

ill poke around and see if i can find something, i think i saw there was a forum linked from that site that may have some info or work arounds. Thank you again for all the help, youve been great!