PLEASE!!! atachMovie without Export in 1st frame?!?! HOW?? sooooo stuck!

[eyedea]

Hi there...
well, after banging my head against the wall... I'm hoping someone will be able to save me....

Trying to solve my preloader problem - I was told that exporting movieclip for export in the first frame of the linkage properties can slow down the preloader and cause it to show up late on screen.
On my site (http://www.graphiceyedea.co.uk >> bottom button) I have set up movieclips to be attached to a clip on stage on button click (in the urls section, web design).
I have set up the Linkage properties for 'export for actionscript' and had the 'export in first frame' option checked - no problems....
After the tip from a helpful forum spirit - that this could be causing my preloader to appear so late - I tried unchecking that box... it stopped working I've tried to find the solution in helpfiles and books.. but I just don't seem to get anywhere..

Can anyone tell me whether I need to add a bit of script to the clips, or... whatever I need to do to make sure the movieclips in the library get exported...??
I feel silly asking ... as it seems like there probably is a very obvious answer and i can't see it.... but I'm just so stuck...

[dnystwn]

Your preloader works fine from here.
Actually I'm dealing with a similar problem.
I just posted the question like 5 minutes ago :P

Anyways, did you try importing the symbols from outside swf's?
I wonder if that would help.

[eyedea]

dnystwn,
well... at least I'm not the only one then...

As far as the preloader on my site is concerned - the first preloader you see while the site loads works fine... - it's the urls section (under portfolio > webdesign) that's giving me the headaches... :'(

Just found something in one of my clever books though: instead of the option of 'export in first frame' - it says to place an instance of the clip in a new keyframe, whenever you need it to be exported/used....
well, to be honest - that doesn't make much sense to me... why bother with the linkage in the first place...? - I think I'll try it - but I just don't get the point..., do you?

[dnystwn]

I'm reading an article that talks about that too.
I'm trying it out now
here's the link to that article:
http://www.flashcomponents.net/tutor.../section1.html

[eyedea]

dnystwn - thanks for that link... reading it now... seems to make more sense than my book - the assests thing. Still don't quite get why exactly the attach movie is better than any other way... but I'm always learning...
just tried it out on my file... it works - I'll have to test it online to check on the preloader - but at least it's working again...

Let me know how you get on - or whether you need a test for yours

[dnystwn]

I think I kinda found a solution.
I tried the one from the site that I refer to you earlier, but I couldn't seem to get the stupic gotoAndPlay thing to work the way I want it with the scenes.

So what I did was to add bunch of frames before the main movie frames. Then place the place the symbols on the frames between the preloader (frame 1) and the main movie.

So the preloader will play, then it'll jump to the main movie.
Something like that.
I'm going to test it on my movie now
I hope this will work

here's the link to my site BTW
www.dnystwn.com

[dnystwn]

hey did you get it to work?

[Musicman]

Hi,

another thing you could try out: http://www.flashkit.com/board/showth...hreadid=289032
Basically you make your main movie with the exports, have flash export them to first frame ... and prepend a preloader externally

I still dont see why flash does not give you control about exporting assets in particular frames (perhaps in an expert menu) - the player can handle these files nicely

Musicman

[eyedea]

dnystwn, I was sure I got back to you yesterday... weird that....
anyway, thanks again for that link... I now managed to set it up as you mentioned: frame1 = preloader, frame 2(extra layer) = asstes, frame3 = content/site - bypassing frame 2 after preloader is finished...
I'd experimented around a bit, trying out the way the article suggested, setting up a scene for the assets... but it wouldn't work, for some reason...
But I read a few other threads and found that this way is a common way to set this up... and it did work for me on my site - I even managed to add a tiny grapphic bit into my prloader aain, minimising the fonts I embedded at the same time... and now the preloaders all seem to kick in pretty quickly between 8-20%...
Looked at your site, by the way... very nice - lovely feel and flow to it!! Once your preloaders kick in quicker - you've got a very professional and beautiful site!!! - Did you manage to get it to work...? - If I can help in any way... just let me know, ok

Musicman, thanks for that link to that thread... I'll have a proper look in a minute... - just so glad to find out I'm not the only one struggling with this....

THANKS AGAIN

[dnystwn]

Hey eyedea,

I managed to reduce the size of the first frame to just below 2 KB.
I guess that's as low as I could get.
I'm pretty satisfied with it, considering the original size was almost 64KB.

[eyedea]

dnystwn, brilliant!! What a huge difference...!
Just had a look at your site again - did you upload the new updated files with your tiny preloader? - Only I couldn't see a diffference in how your preloader came in from the last time I looked..., just thought I'd let you know.

In case you're interested - someone told me of a different set up - if you set up the preloader as movieclip on the main timeline in the main movie - and then call it via actionscript whenever something is loading - that way the preloader is loaded and ready for display whenever needed...

[dnystwn]

I already made it a movie clip and it works fine for the main movie, but now I'm facing a different but similar kind of problem.

I'm trying to load an external swf. It loads just fine, but the preloader won't work.

First I tried to call the getBytesLoaded and getBytesTotal methods from the main movie that calls the external swf, but the problem is the getBytesTotal method returns -1 until the ext swf is loaded, then it would give me the total size of that movie.
So that doesn't work.
So I try to place the preloader at the beginning of the external swf itself, and it doesn't work either.

Do you have any suggestion?

[eyedea]

dnystwn,
... I know how you feel.... - went through that myself...

My preloaders are ok at the moment, the main one remains fine - the other preloaders for the content swfs behave a little iratically, some coming up within the first 20%, the others - een though exactly the same - don't show up until about 60, or even 80%... aaarrrrhggggghhhh.....

But I've also been talking to someone on another forum and there's a better way, I think - haven't had time to set it up on mine yet - but have a look yourself:
http://www.sitepointforums.com/showt...871#post915871

Quick sum-up: set up the preloader movieclip on the main timeline - to be called while swfs are loaded. But instead of scripting everything form the main timeline (as I tried previously, couldn;t get it to work...) - you still set up the first frame for preloading and call the prelaoder movieclip from this external swf....

Well, take a look at the thread - if I don't make sense here...

I'll let you knwo when I've tried it... keep me posted on your progress..