Preloaders? - I don't think so

I have just started a streaming site for a Counter-Strike clan. For those of you who don't know, Counter-Strike is a multiplayer, first person shooter between 2 teams, terrorists and counter-terrorists. Groups form 'clans' and then become allies. Here is the site:

http://q-designs.port5.com/clients/i_op

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The original post:

Flash was meant to be used for streaming multimedia (i.e. no preloaders). Using preloaders defeats the whole purpose of why Flash was designed.

I know it can be difficult to design a streaming site, especially because most people have dial up connections and not broadband but f you have to use a preloader then I recommend reading the following tutorial:

http://www.flashkit.com/cgi-bin/tuto...ump.cgi?ID=555

After reading this, I have started to design with these ideas in mind. My original work, even my main web site used to use preloaders but I have started to think more about aspects of design.

I know that lots of people will disagree with me but lots of people will agree. Have a think about this and next time you design a site, put 'STREAMING' at the top of your priorities list.
[Edited by a_slosh on 02-17-2001 at 08:33 PM]

First of all, as I posted in another thread about streaming or preloading, there was not an "intention" or set of rules when the guys at Macromedia released this wonderful tool they were probably waiting to see how the tool would evolute. The existence of a command like _framesloaded> demonstrates that as a tool, Flash can be expressed in a lot of different manners... :)

And second: what is streaming? In lots of cases, when a swf is streaming, it uses lots of routines for the movie to know that the streamed swf has been loaded. From this point of view, couldn't we conclude that a streamed process is nothing but a glorified preloader? :D

Regards,
david

Quote:

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Originally posted by phooka
First of all, as I posted in another thread about streaming or preloading, there was not an "intention" or set of rules when the guys at Macromedia released this wonderful tool they were probably waiting to see how the tool would evolute. The existence of a command like _framesloaded> demonstrates that as a tool, Flash can be expressed in a lot of different manners... :)

And second: what is streaming? In lots of cases, when a swf is streaming, it uses lots of routines for the movie to know that the streamed swf has been loaded. From this point of view, couldn't we conclude that a streamed process is nothing but a glorified preloader? :D

Regards,
david

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eeeeeeeeeehhhhhhhhhhh:p
yes, but then we have ended up streaming the streaming
that doesn't sound right does it?
cheers eddie

Hi........

First of all,I agree with you a_slosh and Eddie.....and that tutorial is very good......the "spikes" thing is something I'm definitely going to try.

In my opinion, while streaming may be the ideal, it's not always easy to achieve.......but, I think the real problem is visible preloaders.

Eddie with your kite site and Jelve's new site, both prove there's a better way......I know I'm convinced.

Just my two cents..........

-pigghost-

Quote:

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Originally posted by pigghost
I think the real problem is visible preloaders.

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That is the perfect way to put it. That tutorial discusses ways of having an 'invisible' preloader, maybe an intro which makes the movie stream.

the less your end user has to wait (no preloader) the more the user will take the time to see...

i hate using preloaders, if my content needs a preloader, then its too damn big in my opinion.

check out the master of non preloaders, this guy can deliver TONS of content down a pipe with no preloader seen whatsoever

http://www.xdude.com

i dont think he links out to his work sites from his site now, but he makes sites for warnerbros movies, and his sites for them are just as quick

That xdude.com is excellent.

When I say no preoloaders, that is what I mean, that site must have been about 250k and I didn't see one preloader and it loaded perfectly.

This is a perfect example of how we all should design our sites.

you cannot refer to the xdude site as an example for not using preloaders!!

theres no content in it. all it is is just a flash movie that plays. theres no buttons, no different areas in the movie to go to, so why would he need a preloader? he wouldnt.

my view is that preloaders give large "interactive" sites usability as if you stream a site with other areas in it, the user may end up click on a muenu option only to find that it hasnt even loaded yet and cant view it anyway. i have sometimes worked around this by just having an interface and using the load movie function, but still sometimes its not enough. i say that preloaders are required to make a flash site fully interactive, and increase the usabilty of the site.

Quote:

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i say that preloaders are required to make a flash site fully interactive, and increase the usabilty of the site.

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that is the most blatantly stupid thing i have ever quoted

a preloader makes a user WAIT
that is not good for your site, waiting makes people leave.

and when people leave you have NO interaction. interaction does not mean large bitmaps preloaded into flash.

i cant say it any other way. preloaders make people want to leave, not interact

but when you think a site as a total, and this is my opinion ok, everyone has their own.

you go to a site, wait for the first page to load, select a menu option, wait for that page to load, select an item from within that page, and wait for that to open etc etc.

for me, a user, i would rather wait a little longer for a "complete" site to load that when i click on something it apears instantly, than to have to wait and wait everytime i want to view something in a web site. if you are going to a regular html based site, and you have to wait 10-20 seconds for just the first page to load, why would you say that a 10 second preloader is bad?

would rather see a preloader showing me that something is happeneing that see nothing at all

i think a html page that takes 20 seconds to load is equally horrible.

thats just bad use of file size. pages shouldnt be 200k a peace.

if a html page is over 60k total for html and graphics, its way way too big for most users to see

so you see my point for the use of preloaders??
they are good but too oftenn we see them being used just cause they can.

if a site has a need to be preloaded? then i say use it. if you can do it by streaming, then stream it.

Quote:

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Originally posted by a_slosh
Flash was meant to be used for streaming multimedia (i.e. no preloaders). Using preloaders defeats the whole purpose of why Flash was designed.

I know it can be difficult to design a streaming site, especially because most people have dial up connections and not broadband but f you have to use a preloader then I recommend reading the following tutorial:

http://www.flashkit.com/cgi-bin/tuto...ump.cgi?ID=555

After reading this, I have started to design with these ideas in mind. My original work, even my main web site used to use preloaders but I have started to think more about aspects of design.

I know that lots of people will disagree with me but lots of people will agree. Have a think about this and next time you design a site, put 'STREAMING' at the top of your priorities list.

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Sorry I came to the party so late! But I agree with you 100% I have been developing sites that truly stream themselves across the web. Using the 56k standard you'd be surpsrised at the little tricks that you can learn.

I have become a better designer as such and peope will appreciate is when they come to your site and dont have to site through a mouse-chasing preloader.

Good work on this observation and please do keep iy up.

Everybody - time to start streaming!

well could you give some ideas on how you would stream a site with 5 scenes, with the 5 scenes being menu options, and how you would avoid the user selects a menu option that hasnt downloaded yet as the site is streaming??

Doh -- I beg to differ :)

Streaming content may have been a major concern as to the purpose of the product, but I highly doubt that it was as high on Macromedia's list of priorities as you describe it to be.

Preloaders are effective and appropriate if used correctly, especially if you have a whole bunch of music to play, etc. Furthermore, if you have an explosive intro, your viewers will see the first frame of it while they're waiting on the content to stream. The reason I turn to preloaders is so the animation runs smoothly when it comes time to play it.

My $0.02

Dan

Aloha everyone, from Honolulu. I've been lurking Flashkit for a long time, never really felt the need to add my 2sense, but this is a fantastic forum packed with alot of talented people and I just signed in to get some views and site recommendations...
My background is primarily in CAD, 3D and cd-rom, but I've gotten pretty heavily into Flash lately, and now professionally, but applied in a somewhat different manner than what most people are using it for. Nothing on line yet to demo or get opinions on... just want to put this out there: taking a look at Flash sites/content OTHER THAN "I'm cool" demos like Balthaser and animated shorts, what about this topic of streaming content, and true periodic (zine) content that changes daily/weekly/or?
Anybody have any suggestions? I'm curious to see anything that's out there...
P.S. An interesting (to me) side point: Although I agree that the Jakob Nielsen view is grossly obnoxious and overstated, I've noticed that the more talented and experienced Flash creators, when making various functional suggestions, are really addressing alot of the same basic issues that got Nielsen going off on his trip (gratuitous ani, static content, no control within the ani, long preloads, etc.)
Whaddyathinx?

great point robert.

i think you hit it right on the head. as much as some people wont be able to handle it, i think much of what nielson says is pretty true.

and if some of this community would calmly read it, common sense would tell them that he hits some good points:)

example
and the ones that dont get it will continue to force 500k animated flash banners onto customers, telling them that "its cool" with no clue as to what it will do to the end user
/example

The idea of preloading an entire site of 200kb or more just to be certain that the user can click every single option as soon as the movie starts is, IMHO, just not necessary and will drive many, many users away before they see anything.
Using multiple SWFs, loaded either sequentially as you suspect that most users will want them and/or as the user asks for them is really essential to delivering Flash for the masses.
Our current rebuild of jelve.com is made up of over 20 separate SWFs, none over 30kb (except the streaming music). With the exception of the initial interface, most of these do have preloaders. However, if a user is on a reasonably fast 56k connection, they shouldn't see more than 1 or 2 of these and only for a maximum of 5 seconds, if they do. By disabling buttons until at least the preloader for that SWF is loaded, we have attempted to eliminate any chance of a user clicking and nothing happening.
We've also considered at least one other of Nielsen's issues in the 'visited/active' link display on our main menu.
BTW, this site has over 400kb of regular interactive Flash content PLUS a 1.5Mb streaming music track. If a user hits the site with a slow connection, the music starts later. If they hit with a very slow connection, the music does not start automatically and the music button only appears after the music has sufficiently preloaded. The user with a very slow connection is also given a warning when they hover on the music button that this may slow down loading of other parts of the site.
Doing all of this error catching and organizing a package that should play well for all users with little or no preloader is a huge job. Two of us spent about 100 man hours on this aspect alone, after all the swfs were created. It would be much easier to say that the user needs to wait for a 400kb preloader before entering. We find this attitude unacceptable, since so many users will understandably leave after ten or more seconds of looking at 'loading . . . ' You must make it immediately watchable or they won't watch it.

the basic principle of a preloader is a good one, IMHO. i think we have all just seen way too many 300k+ sites trying to preload the entire .swf right off the bat, and that is totally unfriendly to The Dail-up People :) like myself who sit there for 2 or more minutes to see what may or may not be something worth our time. jelve makes a good point. breaking up sites into multiple .swf files just seems more effective and if there is still a need for a preloader, at least it isn't so disruptive to the viewer.

i will personally continue to use preloaders to make sure that my content is sufficiently loaded before it is presented. I do agree, however, that with a little planning flash sites can load in small sequences rather than in one big chunk.

i have been inspired to change my old habits. thanks all! :)

Jelve - your site is fantastic. I never had to wait more than 4 seconds for "something to happen". And I think you give a great example of why flashy (no pun intended) hyper-graphics are cool only once, whereas clean, sharp and functional are what really counts. An insignificant detail that I mention just in case you want to check it out: your sniffer is very impressive, but somehow it got my connection speed(s) totally wrong. A major plus: either your server is mainlined into some serious pipes, or the reach between me and you is particularly clean - your HTML opener came up in 1 second on DSL, 3 seconds on 56k - and I mean time after I hit go! That is fast.
Kudos to you!
P.S. : there are so many good things about your design that I won't try to list them, but one point (pet peeve) in particular I want to give you a medal for: your opener is no longer than it needs to be to do the job. Why don't more people do this? Yours is the kind of site which will work for anyone - I assume you prioritize function over ego-trip. Good going.