Why do components take so long to appear on stage?

[xbrotherx]

I have a movie that is a HUGE online form. I am using the v2 Components. On every "page" (external swfs) there is either a ScrollPane component or an Accordion component. Within each of those could be numerous (1 - 15) different components (CheckBoxs, Buttons, ComboBoxes, RadioButtons, etc.) including DataGrids. And to top that off, even some of the DataGrids can have components in them using the CellRenderer class (either ComboBoxes or Cehckboxes). All these components are preloaded in a Shared Library in the root movie and when the external swf is loaded it looks to an XML file to determine what components to use and where to place them.

The problem is, it takes forever and a day (anywhere from 5 - 10 seconds) for the components to appear and while they are loading, the movie "freezes"...including code execution...until the components are drawn to the Stage. Once they are visible to the user, the movie continues to run. So even if I wanted an animation, like a waiting cursor, to animate so the user doesn't think things are broken, I can't have one because it just stops.

Now I can see that the loading of the swf and the parsing of the XML is fast because I am tracing out those steps and components still don't show up long after those traces are complete. I can even see the code execution "freezing" because I am using Remoting and when I don't use components the callback returns are traced very quickly, but when the components are thrown back in, the Remoting callbacks stall until the components appear on Stage.

Now I know that, I am pushing the edge here but the simplicity of using these components is too much to pass up considering how much data I am pushing around.

Anyone, experienced this problem and created a work around or have a solution. These components are not very useful if you can't even make a Flash based web form and not have draw to the stage quickly.

[.Bruno]

Have you figured out a way to speed up the rendition of components?

[xbrotherx]

Well, I found this article by Grant Skinner http://www.gskinner.com/blog/archives/2004/08/internal_preloa.html#more very helpful in speeding up the process a bit. I basically preloads all the components and their respective Classes before they are ever use. There is, though, a slight pause in drawing them to screen due to them initializing but I have learned to live with it because that horrible "freezing" of everything that I was experiencing was destroyed through the use of the solution posted by Skinner. In that, I was able to use a waiting cursor, like the Mac beach ball, to keep the user entertained until things were drawn to the screen.

I hope this helps you. So far my expereince with components has been both a blessing and a curse. For the most part blessing with the exception of the Datagrid which...well, drives me nuts sometimes.

[.Bruno]

Thanks! I'll check out Skinner's solution.