Considerations when working with preloaders in Flash
Created
16 January 2012
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Previous experience working with Flash Professional is recommended. Refer to Avoiding common authoring mistakes to find links to other articles in this series.
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- Flash Professional (Download trial)
This article contains details about working with preloaders in Adobe Flash Professional so that you can configure projects to display content more efficiently and keep users informed of the SWF-loading process.
Preloaders are designed to appear as SWF content loads in the background. They are often animated graphics that hold the user's attention and provide a better playback viewing, rather than users staring at a blank screen and wondering if anything is happening.
In some cases, preloaders are also configured to display a progress bar or a numeric value that indicates the amount of content that has loaded. This feedback is helpful because the user understands that the loading process is almost complete.
Avoid common preloader mistakes
Two conditions interfere with preloaders:
- If any class is set to export on Frame 1, the preloader won't appear until the class(es) have completely loaded.
- If any component is set to export on Frame 1, the preloader won't appear until the component(s) have completely loaded.
Follow these steps to resolve either issue:
- In the Library panel, right-click each of the components. In the menu that appears, select the Properties option.
- In the Symbol Properties dialog box, deselect the option to Export on Frame 1. Click OK.
- Choose File > Publish Settings. Locate the ActionScript version menu near the top. To the right of that menu, click the ActionScript settings button (wrench icon).
- In the ActionScript Settings dialog box, enter 2 in the Export classes in frame field, instead of exporting the classes on Frame 1 (see Figure 1).
Note: Use caution whenever adding third-party preloaders to your projects. Take the time to read the code and comments (if available) to understand the logic thoroughly.
Where to go from here
To learn more about creating and incorporating preloaders into your Flash projects, read the following articles and online documentation:
- Preloading in Flash (Senocular.com)
- Creating preloaders using ActionScript 3
- Load external SWF files into a parent SWF file (TechNote)
- Use the ProgressBar component (Using ActionScript 3 Components)
- Building a custom Flex preloader
Refer to Avoiding common authoring mistakes to find links to other articles in this series.
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 Unported License
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