Chapter 28: Sharing and Loading Assets

Overview

In This Chapter

Creating a preloader for your Flash movie

Loading Flash movies into other Flash movies

Using the MovieClipLoader API

Loading image files into Flash movies

Loading MP3 audio into Flash movies

Loading Flash Video files into Flash movies

Using a preloader for external media files

Centralizing assets with Shared libraries

Because most Flash movies are downloaded and viewed over the Web, ActionScript has a number of advanced actions that are dedicated solely to controlling the download and display of movies and Library assets. Actions that check the loaded bytes of a Flash movie file (.swf) or media file let developers prevent a movie from playing before a specified portion of it has finished loading. The loadMovie() and unloadMovie() actions enable Flash content to be broken into small pieces or assets that are downloaded only when they are needed.

New Feature 

Flash Player 8 enables you to load PNG, GIF, and progressive JPEG images into your Flash movies, in addition to MP3, .flv, and .swf files. We show you how to load these media files in this chapter.

Web Resource 

Refer to the Runtime Loading chart listed in the "Flash Asset Management" section of the www.flashsupport.com/links page for more information on Flash Player compatibility with run-time assets.