Preload and caching of externally loaded JPGs

[hip]

Hello.

I recently finished a website for my girlfriend and included at the home-page a small Flash slide-show that feeds dinamically from the image gallery. It loads one pre-defined (from the administration area) JPG image from each of the image gallery categories. It works ok but...

... as you may see there's a BIG preloading problem. (www.jjceramique.com)

At the moment it loads the image (JPG) and it's supposed to show the image for a while (a few frames) and then switch to the next image. But because it takes (too) long loading the image, it switches to the next one even before having shown the previous one at all.

If you wait for a couple of loops then the images begin showing up for some microseconds. :-(

SOLUTION?

I think I should be able to preload & cache all 6 or 7 images before launching the slide show. Even better, I should preload & cache the first one, show it while preloading the 2nd one, show it and preload the 3rd one...

I've been looking for solutions without a clue. I'm using Flash MX v.6.0. I've been told to update for there're some new methods and components that would let me do what want, but I'd love to be able to stick to version 6 for backward compatibility issues and for accesibility issues (not everyone has the latest Flashplayer). But still an effective solution for a higher version would be appreciated.

Any help is more than welcome.

Thanx in advance,
hip
www.4tres.com

[JacobHaug]

I don't really see a problem...??

[hip]

Hi,

Thanx for the reply, JacobHaug.

I think you may have a superfast broadband. We, here in France have 1Mb bandwidth as average. And yes, we can't see the images in the animations before 2 or 3 loops. :-(

[JacobHaug]

Well I have a T3 connection here, so I would say that is a little bit faster than your connection. I would suggest a pre-loader. I would not cache the pictures, as some people don't allow cache. Why one picture is displaying, I would be pre-loading the next picture. That way the user never has to wait.

[hip]

Thanx again for the reply,

Preloading not caching may be a good solution. The problem is I don't exactly know how to do it (though I can manage with simple preloaders for both .swf & .jpg).

At this moment I'm loading the jpg into the same movieclip, so while one is preloading the prior one is already gone. I believe I should need either

• 2 moviclips (instances) one for the preloading image and one for the already loaded
• or as many MC (instances) as images I want to preload. In this last case I should dinamically tell Flash how many instances we require.

Any clue about it? (I mean actionscript, yeah)

Thanx in advance,
hip

[JacobHaug]

Just start with a basic per-loader, depending on how large your total file size is, you might just have one pre-loader load your entire photo gallery. Test you flash movie, and open the bandwidth profiler, and tell me your file size.