Macromedia Flash Professional 8 UNLEASHED [Electronic resources] نسخه متنی

What Content Can Be Loaded and Where?

In Flash 8, you can load PNGs, GIFs, JPEGs and SWFs, but in the 6 and 7 player, you can only load JPEGs and SWFs. You can also load in .flv (Flash Video) files and MP3s, but that is beyond the scope of this chapter. (More on .flv and MP3 loading in Chapter 26, "Streaming Media.")

NOTE

In earlier versions of the Flash player, you could only load nonprogressive JPEG files, but not in the 8 player, they can be progressive download and still work. Just keep this in mind when working on projects with earlier player versions.

You can load .swf files and the three image files into three places:

• Level Number .
  You can load content directly into a level of the Flash player.

• Movie Clip .
  You can load content into any movie clip created manually, or with ActionScript including the _root.

• Text Fields .
  You$I~text fields;loading external content> can load not only images, but also SWF files directly into dynamic text fields.

We will go over each method of loading in external files, but first, let's look at the difference in file size whether we load a file externally or we have it on the stage all the time.

Look at Figures 19.1 and 19.2. There is no difference in image quality, but notice the file size difference. Figure 19.1 was brought into Flash manually, and then the Flash file was compiled at a file size of 165 kilobytes. Now look at Figure 19.2, which shows exactly the same image, but it is being loaded in from an external source. The file size there is 82 bytes, not even one kilobyte in file size.

Now, these figures have to be taken with a grain of salt. It is true that the file size of the Flash movie is decreased, but that does not mean that the image is smaller. In fact, the image size may be greater with an external file because Flash can compress JPEGs further.