Preloading a specific graphic?

[greg.harvey]

How would you go about preloading a specific graphic in Flash. I don't want it to be a separate movie that's loaded in if possible. Had a quick search around and couldn't find anything. Just wanted to find out if it was possible.... and if it is, any links to tutorials.

Thanks,

G

[aaron.martone]

Short and sweet for clarification, any image in flash is loaded from the get-go. But if you're talkin about loading an external jpeg into a movie, here's the basics.

loadMovie("myFile.jpg", "_root.my.movieClip");

You can use _root.my.movieClip.getBytesLoaded() and _root.my.movieClip.getBytesTotal() to figure out the percent that has loaded

[greg.harvey]

Oh, that's pretty cool! You can bring JPGs in directly! Thanks.

So, if my instance name is "reel":

loadMovie("myFile.jpg", "_root.reel" );

Would that be right?

G

[aaron.martone]

That would be right ONLY if the "reel" instance clip resides on your stage. Ie, when you boot flash, and in a new document, the white area is the stage. If you toss an object onto that area, it's on the ROOT level.

This is called targeting. If it's on the stage, then yeah, it's _root.reel. If reel had a movieclip in it, you could reference it like this

From the stage
_root.reel.myMovieClip

From reel
_parent (refers to Stage)
myMovieClip (refers to its child)

From myMovieClip
_parent (refers to reel)
_parent._parent (refers to stage)

[greg.harvey]

I see. Makes perfect sense! Thanks very much. "reel" is actually in a clip, so I need to give that clip an instance name, say "content", so that I can target "reel" I guess:

_root.content.reel

It's just like moving up and down a directory tree in MS DOS or Unix isn't it....

[aaron.martone]

Correct.

I like the analogy of file folders. If you don't name one, you can't get to it's kids.

You basically have _root, _parent. And you can use them in any manner you see (_root can only be used once per target)

(1) _root.myClip1
(2) _root.myClip2
(3) _root.myClip1.myChild1;
(4) _root.myClip2.myChild2;
(5) _root.myClip2.myChild2.myBaby2;

To get to _root.myClip1.myChild1, you can go

(1) myChild1
(2) _parent.myClip1.myChild1;
(3) this;
(4) _parent._parent.myClip1.myChild1;
(5) _parent._parent._parent.myClip1.myChild1;

Of course, you can just go right to _root and target the object from anywhere (that's known as an absolute path, because you can use it ANYWEHRE in the hierarchy to get to an object - since it all uses the same start point, root)

[greg.harvey]

Cool. Got the hang of it completely now. So simple, and loading in JPGs directly is exactly what I wanted to do! Just never bothered to learn ActionScript properly... one step at a time, eh?

If only someone had said before that _parent is like ../ and _root is like starting from C:\ and it all would've made sense sooner! Thanks.

G

[greg.harvey]

I'm having trouble with this now.... I had this ActionScript:

loadMovie("test.jpg", "_root.mainContent.reel.photo1");
setProperty("_root.mainContent.reel.photo1", _x, "800");
setProperty("_root.mainContent.reel.photo1", _y, "-230");

It worked fine. Then I went to put the movie in situ, so I changed it to:

loadMovie("../img/photos/runners.jpg", "_root.mainContent.reel.photo1");
setProperty("_root.mainContent.reel.photo1", _x, "800");
setProperty("_root.mainContent.reel.photo1", _y, "-230");

It didn't work. Tried moving "runners.jpg" to the same location as my movie:

loadMovie("runners.jpg", "_root.mainContent.reel.photo1");
setProperty("_root.mainContent.reel.photo1", _x, "800");
setProperty("_root.mainContent.reel.photo1", _y, "-230");

Still no joy.

Any ideas? I don't see how it could actually be the graphic cos it was outputted for web.

G

[greg.harvey]

Figured out what this was. Flash player won't load progressive JPGs.