Preloading in Flash 5 versus Flash 4

In Flash 4, if you wanted to preload part of a file, you had to set up what's known as a gate. A gate consists of three frames :

• 1 ^st Frame. Checks whether a specific frame is loaded. If the frame is loaded, you jump to the third frame. Otherwise, the movie continues to play.

• 2 ^nd Frame. If the movie continues to play, this frame sends you back to the first frame to run the check again. You loop between these two frames until the condition in the first frame is met.

• 3 ^rd Frame. This is the frame you want your movie to start playing from as soon as the frame you checked for in the first frame has loaded.

In Flash 5, you can set up your preloading sequence as a movie clip so that it can just sit on the first frame of your movie. You still can use the gate method, but the movie clip approach is not only easier, but also completely reusable!

You start with a very simple approach to creating a preloader. In each subsequent section, you build on what you already know.