preload forever!!! file not big...

[Design_Girl]

I am new to flash and have learned a lot, but I am having a problem with my preloader. My file consists of basic 5 scenes. one is bigger ("portfolio") with a lot of images, but in all my file is only 1.4MB. This isn't big, right? But when I post my site and the loading is taking place it takes 1-2 minutes before it jumps to my first "home" scene. Why is this happening? What have a I done wrong? I thought I was all done and now people won't be able to ever view it...

Thanks for any help you can offer :)
melissa

[scousehouse]

It's far too big I'm afraid!!!
I remember when I started using flash I was using photos that were unneseccarily big but I only realised that after.

Maybe try these two things:
1) Try and reduce all images to no more than 30k each. Resize them in Photoshop or something. Don't rescale them in Flash (as this doesn't reduce the memory size)

2)Also, use thumbnails of maybe 5k each that can then link to the larger images

[Colin Campbell]

Welcome to the forums :)

Well, if you do the math, 1.4 MBs ( 1400 KB) on a 56K connection will take roughly 25 seconds, and thats if its downloading at 56K *which almost never happens* File optomization is very important with Flash. You want everything as small as possible, as users won't wait around for 3 minutes to load (if it isn't good).

[boyzdynasty]

dag...Colin...you and the MATH stuff....

lol

@Design_Girl

When you run it on your PC it will be fast, b/c you don't have to load anything.
From the website....it takes a while to load a 1.4MB file

Try splitting up your scenes to multiple *.swf....

Have a "main.swf" that acts like a navigator and loader that loads the other *.swf.

Makes sense? :D

[Design_Girl]

thanks so much...
also will it help if i make them separate movies as opposed to one large movie and make them load separately?

(i kinda realized the images were large, but me boss is the problem. he wants them to be as clear as possible... and has no idea how web images work)

-melissa

[boyzdynasty]

yes.

[annexion]

Hey Colin, just for your information (not sniping...) it's 56k. Kilobits. It's a marketing ploy. It's actually 7 or so kilobytes a second. So it's 200 seconds, or about 3.33 minutes.

[Design_Girl]

Thanks so much for the help.
I am now breaking up the big movie into separate swf files. havent tested it yet, but ran into a problem already. I have split my "portfolio" section into 3 swf files. in each one there is a back and forward button going through the images. but when i want to go backward from one movie to the previous it will jump to the beginning of that movie. i need it to go to the last image, specifying a frame for it to go to. is this possible to do? I hope this makes sense.

thanks!
melissa

[Design_Girl]

When I go from movie to movie it flashes to a white screen. its not bad, but i am worried my boss will mention it. is there a way for it to not flash when the person goes to another part of the site?

thanks-

[jubei]

A quick and dirty way is to have a variable set to false. So in the main timeline, not any of the portfolio timelines, put

_global.backVar = false;

Then, in the first frame of the first portfolio movie clip, have

if (global.backVar == true) {
gotoAndStop(whatever the last frame is);
_global.backVar = false;
}

And finally, on your back button add

_global.backVar = true;

That should mean when you click the back button, it goes to the first frame of the previous portfolio, sees that the variable is true, and jumps to the last frame.. hopefully quick enough that nobody notices.

Hope that helps.
Damien

[jubei]

I don't know how to get those [AS] tags to work.. is it something i'm doing wrong?

[boyzdynasty]

no. ever since the site got hacked...it has not work....

just use the [php] or [code] tags. :D

[jubei]

ok