If i have no loading bar ?

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LostMind
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If i have no loading bar ?

Post by LostMind »

Hi everebody !

I am new here, my name is Damien Goulet from Quebec and i just started discovered Moho ( now, i am using the demo but soon i'll buy this amazing software ).

I am building a flash movie who will probably posted on Newgrounds but i know that Moho did not support interactive content like loading bar.

My question is: What will happen when someone will click on my flash in NG if i don't have a loading bar ?
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heyvern
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Post by heyvern »

I believe you are talking about a preloader in Flash to avoid audio synch problems?

Here is the problem...

Moho only exports the animation as SWF so... if you have audio that needs to be synched with complex animation... with out preloading the whole thing before it starts the animation goes out of synch with the audio. This depends on the size and complexity of the SWF file and the animation.

In order to add a preloader to an SWF or flash movie you need Flash or some kind of application that can add this in.

A preloader uses action script to check if the entire SWF has loaded entirely into memory. Then it starts. If it is completely in the memory then there won't be a delay or synch problems with audio.

Otherwise the animation may stop or pause to load more frames while the audio continues to play... or visa versa.

-Vern
LostMind
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Post by LostMind »

Thank for your answer.

I'll check for some interactive web content freeware why i just can't afford Flash.
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Rasheed
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Post by Rasheed »

It would be great if someone could write a freeware crossplatform program to create and insert a preloader at the start of a Shockwave Flash file exported from Moho. The only solutions I have seen so far by Googling are either Windows-only or Flash files, which require some (payed) version of Macromedia Flash, usually version 4 or 5 and above.
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slowtiger
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Post by slowtiger »

Back in the old days, when we used Director, we used a "stub projector" for a similar purpose. The projector was a simple Director file containing a bit of code saying "play movie start.dir which is somewhere near you". So it saved us the hassle to create a new projector for each and every new Director movie, which had to be done on Mac and Win separately.

Doing something similar in Flash should be possible, it only requires some code, and one has to rename the file to be loaded and played properly. But please ask someone else to code that.
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Rasheed
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Post by Rasheed »

I tried SWF, Lock & Load by Vertical Moon. They have both a Windows and Mac OS version.

http://www.verticalmoon.com/products/swflockload/

Here is a very simple sample a made:
squares

Note, that this is a shareware program. You can buy a license through a PayPal account for less than 20 USD. Seems to be a good solution for most cases. The unregistered version is fully functional, but displays a DEMO watermark.
LostMind
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Post by LostMind »

Thanks a lot for your answer. I'll try this shareware.
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jorgy
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Post by jorgy »

Does it have an option for a progress bar, or a "percent complete loading" function?
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Rasheed
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Post by Rasheed »

Yes, several types of progress bars and several kinds of progress messages, amongst which percentage loaded. You can even insert your own preload animation (I haven't tried that). Just download it and try it out, Jorgy.

Edit: Here is an animation (if you can call it that) with a progress bar and a percentage. I had some old C64 music gathering dust on my Mac and some crazy idea about bouncing balls. It was made using Moho and SWF, Lock & Load. I tried insert my own SWF in the preloader, but that didn't seem to work.
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jorgy
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Post by jorgy »

Boy, that does sure seem to make it easy to make a preloader!! I'll have to give it a try.

Thanks for the link, Rasheed.

jorgy
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