Using Flash Productively

In the long term I want the Between The Lines series of interactive books to be online. This means that file sizes need to be small to keep loading time down. The way that I have made the template enables it to load in separate files of art work and dialogue as and when it is needed. This means that at the start when it loads initially, All that will need to load is the frame its self (which is well below 10kb) and the first part of dialogue along with the accompanying artwork, which again are both small in size. If everything had to load at once, the file could end up being huge and wouldn't work effectively on the net. Also because of the nature of the book and the fact the user chooses what to do. Some parts would be missed out and it would be a waste of time having to wait for these parts to load.

I have used empty movieclips in the template. One called art_loader and the other called dialogue_loader. The action script for the links in the artwork looks something like this:





door_btn.onRelease=function(){
_root.art_loader.loadMovie("ART/CLASSROOM.swf");
}




_root. means that the command is being sent up from the art work movieclip to the template where the art loader is located.

This process enables me to have folder full of all the artwork movieclips, one full of all the dialogue movie clips and one simple movieclip (the template) that when opened calls up and opens everything from the folders as and when it is needed.