Flash Site Design - LoadMovie vs goto Scene

Author

LoadMovie vs goto Scene

downloadthisthing webforumsuser@macromedia.com

2003-11-27, 7:39 pm

Hi, all.
I'm pretty new to Flash, using MX. Please help me understand loading movies as opposed to loading scenes.

I understand that they are both on-demand schemes, allowing the viewer to see what they want, which can bypass the need for a preloader. However, if you split a file into many swfs to load in, doesn't the viewer still have to wait for it to load (if it's
so large)? With a scene, isn't the same true?

I know how to perform both, but do not know the true benefits of either.

Please help, understanding that I'm new at this game.

Thanks,
Scott

FernandoZanatta webforumsuser@macromedia.com

2003-11-27, 7:39 pm

hi scott, i'm from brazil (my english is very bad) but you need understand that:

is normal that the loading be visible when is finishing, cause it needs be load too, then i always use a small movie animating or no, in the first frame of the scene saying "loading" with this action:

If Frame Is Loaded (principal, 100) (the scene of the pre-loader)
Go to and Play (principal, 1)
End Frame Loaded

bye

downloadthisthing webforumsuser@macromedia.com

2003-11-27, 7:39 pm

Hi.
I had a hard time understanding the instructions. i think you're telling me to use a preloader, but I'm not talking about a preloader. I need to know about loadmovie vs loadscenes.

So far, to my limited knowledge, they seem to accomplish the same thing: breaking up a large movie into smaller ones.

Please, someone, help me.

Thanks.

downloadthisthing webforumsuser@macromedia.com

2003-11-27, 7:39 pm

I'm new to the Macromedia forums, they appear slow. Is this an active board?

Anyhow, please, if anyone knows, please answer my question.

Thanks.

stwingy webforumsuser@macromedia.com

2003-11-27, 7:39 pm

Well I am not sure what you mean by "loadscenes" but you will find that most people who use flash a lot do not use scenes but use frame labels. So then you would write your code something like this

myButton.onRelease = function(){
gotoAndStop("myFrame")
}
LoadMovie is useful for breaking up a site etc into different components parts. This means that the page will not take so long to load. For Example, you may have a media player on your site which is just loaded in as or when is needed.

Certified but not by Macromedia!
myurl

Skim Milk webforumsuser@macromedia.com

2003-11-27, 7:39 pm

I think this might be pertinent.

The load movie function is very useful if you want to break a site up into many different small .swf files. I recently rewrote my homepage using such a method because if I used one move (with different scenes) I would have had a 20 meg .swf file for peop
le to download. Instead I have broken it down into many files and I use a central interface file to call and load them when the user selects the proper menu choice.

I use a preloader in each .swf file no matter how large. I'm still rewriting my homepage and tweaking the graphics. But here is a link, http://www.umich.edu/~ngillett/

The short:
For small sites (with respect to file size):
It will be easier to build using scenes, and just navigating between them because you only have to load one file.

For large Sites (lots of content):
LoadMovie will probably work best here, build a bunch of smaller .swf files that you can load on demand.

Referring URLs
http://www.umich.edu/~ngillett/

downloadthisthing webforumsuser@macromedia.com

2003-11-27, 7:39 pm

Thank you so m uch for the replies. It's clearer now. Nick, you were especially helpful. I'm new, and my movies are fairly small (less than a meg), so I can realistically adjust my expectations and workflow.

I read about the two techniques, but it wasn't really clear in the book.

Thanks, again.
Scott

Grobert Nelg

2003-12-02, 9:50 pm

I've recently discovered the need for the preloaders. Look at this site:

Originally it was one single file using gotoscene. It was over 2 megs
and took 30 to 45secs to load. When it did, if I clicked on the shirts
link, it would go to jackets, because it had NOT fully loaded the shirts
section.

Now the main page loads immediately, because the 4 options are separate
swf files; only the initial swf file has to load. If u want see shirts,
then it loads shirts. You don't need to wait 30 secs for the other
scenes to load.

G

"downloadthisthing" webforumsuser@macromedia.com wrote:

quote:

> Hi, all.
> I'm pretty new to Flash, using MX. Please help me understand loading movies as opposed to loading scenes.
>
> I understand that they are both on-demand schemes, allowing the viewer to see what they want, which can bypass the need for a preloader. However, if you split a file into many swfs to load in, doesn't the viewer still have to wait for it to load (if it'

s so large)? With a scene, isn't the same true?

quote:

>
> I know how to perform both, but do not know the true benefits of either.
>
> Please help, understanding that I'm new at this game.
>
> Thanks,
> Scott
>
>

Grobert Nelg

2003-12-02, 9:50 pm

ooops

http://www.members.shaw.ca/themiff/Onix/

Grobert Nelg wrote:

quote:

> I've recently discovered the need for the preloaders. Look at this
> site:
>
> Originally it was one single file using gotoscene. It was over 2
> megs and took 30 to 45secs to load. When it did, if I clicked on the
> shirts link, it would go to jackets, because it had NOT fully loaded the
> shirts section.
>
> Now the main page loads immediately, because the 4 options are
> separate swf files; only the initial swf file has to load. If u want see
> shirts, then it loads shirts. You don't need to wait 30 secs for the
> other scenes to load.
>
> G
>
> "downloadthisthing" webforumsuser@macromedia.com wrote:
>
>

Vito A

2004-03-10, 8:29 pm

Nick,
Thanks for helping me too with your post in this thread. You've pointed me in
the right direction for loading nested SWF's to reduce the overall size of my
Flash site. I need to do exactly what you did on your site and break my movie
into smaller clips with individual preloaders. Macromedia's "Flash MX
Actionscripting - Advanced Training From The Source" seems to help with this
(Lesson 17), too.

By the way, good music selection on your site. You've given me some new tunes
to look for. Are you streaming those down?