Flash file too big!! part 2

[Collegekid19]

Here is the site www(dot)tatuvalkonenphotography(dot)com/newsite/test.html
Thanks to the help of EFV,

I was able to get my flash file size down a tremendous amount. I feel like Jarred from subway except I lost MB's and not LBS. :)

Anyways now that I am feeding my photos to movie clips in my flash file via XML and Action script 2.0...

There are still some lags between button clicks, although overall everything is loading much faster.

I was wondering anyone knows how I can get my images to load faster. I would be open to a pre-loader or perhaps pre-loading the images themselves.

Thanks again to EFV I truly appreciate his help and anyone else that fill me in on how to make these images load faster.

This forum is the absolute best.

Cheers!
CK19

www(dot)tatuvalkonenphotography(dot)com/newsite/test.html

[Eye for Video]

Hey man, where is everybody?
OK, well here's my two cents worth. Right now your images are between 150KB and 250 KB. That's really not huge, but large enough that download will not be instantaneous. The only way to make 250 KB download faster is to use a faster connection, which obviously you can’t control for every viewer. To preload the all the images for a page would require downloading about 4MB (20 X 200 KB) of data every time the page loads. If the viewer chooses any image listed near the bottom of the page, they may have to wait till all those ahead of it in the order are loaded first. Not really practical from a bandwidth standpoint or a download time standpoint.
So, some options to consider…. make the files smaller. Reduce the physical size from say 600 px X 450 px to 500 X 375. Keep the resolution and compression settings the same so quality would be exactly equal to the large images. This would result in about a 30% reduction (from about 250KB to about 187KB) in file size without any reduction in quality.
Or you could leave the physical size the same and compress the image 30% more. File size reduced at a cost of quality.
Downloading 250KB will always take longer than downloading 187KB.
But let’s say you want to keep the quality up and stick with 250KB images. So how about using a preloader, not to stock pile the images on the viewers browser but to show a “Loading….” type clock or something. This is done (in Flash) by placing an animation in the first few frames of the movie clip into which you will be loading the image. Then using AS coding to check bytes loaded verses bytes total, refreshed 10 times a second or so to give you 10%….30%…..80% … etc.
The preloader doesn’t have to just flash the word “Loading”….Loading”. Create an animation appropriate for your site “Tatuvalkonen Photography Presents”, or something. Enough to let the viewer know something is happening.
Here’s a sample of an animated preloader:
http://www.uncledoodad.com/demo/demo.html
Google for Flash preloader tutorials.
Keep on Truckin’
Eye for Video
www.cidigitalmedia.com

[Collegekid19]

EFV,

I don't wanna over do it but I really can't say thanks enough! You are the man and all of your suggestions are fantastic. I truly appreciate it!

CK19