Can i load in a picture from an external folder?

[Christopera]

I want to build a flash slide show but if i include in the pictures it will take forever to load. Should I simply put up with this or is there a way that i can load in pictures from and external source that will help load times?

P.S. I know absolutely nothing about flash and use a program to do all of it, little to no coding here. So please in dummy form.

[kestrel]

one prolem that would cause slow load times, would be image size.

for example, you use a 800x700 px image, and display it as a 400x350 px
this would cause the entire image to load then be displayed, to avid this, scale the image down using a program such as Photoshop, thats what i use

how many images are you putting into this slideshow?

i mean, if you were to load images from another place, they'd still have to load

[Christopera]

I have scaled the photo's down both in size and dpi to help load time. My thinking was that the flash would load and then load pictures as needed.

I did not think about this too well becuase it would probably lag on every picture as opposed to a single wait in the beginning.

I was hoping to have as many as like 15 but I think I may keep down to about half that and just put up with the load times. I have yet to check it's load time by uploading so I will be able to judge better when i do.

[kestrel]

you could also use a preloader, so all the images will be loaded before the page is loaded


let me know how fast it is when you upload

[Christopera]

I installed a nice preloder, so i think people will be slightly less annoyed by waiting. I am going to have to wait and see what the results are. I'll keep you updated as I'll be uploading the setup on sunday or monday.

[kestrel]

alright then
good luck

[Christopera]

Karting101.com

It's the slideshow on the front page.

[kestrel]

yeah, it loaded in less than half a second for me
and im using a mac, so that nanoseconds.
seems ok

[Christopera]

Yeah on pc it was fast. What Mac do you have? I'm probably make the switch late this summer as I am fed up with windows.

[kestrel]

personally, i hate macs
i feel that pcs have much more to offer for programmers like me
macs have way to much graphics wise, and too many special effects

my laptop is windows xp home, and ive turned off all teh shadows and things that make it look good, so its pretty much bare-bones, and its perfect for me

im using an eMac with OS X

i just find pcs to have much more programs avalible and things i need to get my work done

[Christopera]

Other than some web and photo stuff I dont really do much. The Mac offers much better video editing and things of that nature so I find it is more useful too me.

Don't get me wrong though, i'll be running xp or vista(hopefully not vista) on the mac also. I also like Mac's product better, i think that the engineering is much more engineered... I find that most pc's have way too many cords and are typicaly designed rather poorly. I will keep my microsoft based pc, but will get a mac book.

[kestrel]

sounds good for your situation, macs do offer the iLife line of products which i actually want on my pc, sometimes
i actually considered double booting, but decided against it

you're right about the design of pcs though...

[vinmunoz]

why not just break your webpages or pictures into separate swf files and use the

load/unloadmovies
use levels

check loadtarget also where you can load an image into a specific place and size.

this is one way of making the load time faster.

vincent

[iamindian216]

hey everyone,

i am creating a flash animation using the program SWiSHmax...and I am running into a similar problem. I have 20 or so very high resolution pictures that I have just scaled down the pixel size on the prgm (as opposed to changing it on photoshop)..so that is one thing I will change. However, I doubt this will still do the trick. I like the idea of using a preloader, but I have no idea how--some help? Also, which will play the flash animation more smoothly -- using a preloader or using an external folder?

thanks

[iamindian216]

on second thought--would the preloader even help me? my flash animation is even slow when i am just viewing it in the Flash program--not even online. what would be my best option?

[lollerskates]

Hey, you can load in an image from a folder in flash. I don't know if this method reduces the download time but I would assume it does since you aren't embedding the images into the swf file and only calling the files as and when you need them.

The way I do it is to write code to create an empty movie clip (check out createEmptyMovieClip) and then load in the image by specifying the URL where the image is (check out loadClip).

If your image isn't the right size (in dimensions) you need to write code to resize it to the size you need... which is a bummer :-)