[CS3] Flash interface for Client to control play order of external swfs

[G-man]

Hope someone can help. I am a newbie to Actionscript 3.0 but not to Flash but am learning fast and wondered whether anyone could explain the best route forward for this project.

My client has approx 12 different presentation .swf's all with a beginning, middle and an end (phew!). I need to build an interface that views those 12 individual presentations as thumbnails on a single page and allows my client to click and drag whichever ones they wish to use into a separate little container above and in-doing so create a new required running order (left to right) each time they use my interface... so that once they have decided that running order they can somehow use the result for their required presentation. They will be using this interface ongoing throughout the year for various presentations all that will require maybe just a few of those individual swf's in different orders.

Does that make sense?

Thanks!

[whispers]

If you need AS3 help...posting in the AS3 forum would probably get you better results..since ...well,.... it deals with AS3 code/questions

I'll move it for you there now.

[squirtpunk]

Makes sense, but if youre new to AS3 it's going to be confusing for a while. I would probably set up 12 place holders, a play button, and have the thumbnails below that. then i'd use something like:

(this is not actual as3 just an outline)
if placeholder1_mc.x = thumbnail5_mc.x, firstClip = thumbnail5 + ".swf"
if placeholder2_mc.x = thumbnail1.mc.x, secondClip = thumbnail1 " ".swf"

or have the order saved to an array.

get number of thumbnails used

then something like this on the play button

on mouseEvent down load firstClip, on complete unload firstclip, load secondclip, and so on.

It's do-able that way though there may be infinite better ways.

[G-man]

Thanks to you both...

I'm picking it up quickly and have made sense of your response... will follow this course to start with and i'm sure as my experience with AS3 grows, then I may adapt it...

Thanks again

G

[G-man]

one thought based on this process about preloading... as some of the movies maybe large and i want a smooth transition between movies,

Can i

preload 1st clip and play, then preload 2nd clip while 1st is playing, then unload 1st and preload 3rd while 2nd is playing, then unload 2nd and preload 4th while 3rd is playing etc....

or would you do it another way entirely?

all comments appreciated!

G

[squirtpunk]

I'm sure there's a way. You could just stream the movies if that's an option, that way they still play instantly.

[G-man]

Thanks for all your help on this... sorry for the delay in responding!