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From: rafa on 14 Jan 2008 15:27
Hello everyone:
I was looking online on how to create my own progress bar...and everything I
found are tutorials made for lingo masters! There has to be a simpler way of
explaining us mortals how to create something as simple as a progress bar.

What I am trying to accomplish is to give the CD user a load bar that tells
him how much of the content on the CD has loaded. Something I can put on my
very first frame that will show progress while the interface loads.

Any ideas?

Thank you.

From: Sean Wilson on 14 Jan 2008 16:28
You are not going to be able to display progress while your interface
loads, as Director is already too busy loading your interface.
However, your question suggests that your application is taking "too
long" to load from CD. There are some strategies to alleviate this:
1). Place a bitmap file with the same name as your projector /next/ to
your projector. This bitmap could contain text along the lines of
"Please wait while <application_name> loads..." and a logo or similar.
It can be any dimension, but the smaller it is the faster it will display.
2). Create a so-called fast-start stub projector. See <
http://www.adobe.com/go/tn_14431> for more details.
3). Use your burning software to set your stub and immediately required
startup files to be "highest priority" so that they are kept together
(no need for the read head to move very far to locate and read the
files) and burned to the outside of the disc where data is read more
quickly (due to angular momentum).
From: Richard on 14 Jan 2008 16:43
Oooohhh cool tips!

Thanks :)

Richard Smith


From: johnAq on 14 Jan 2008 17:07
Sean's comments are all very valid, regarding the load time for your app to
load/appear.

Once it's running, if you need to preload a set of assets for a particular
purpose (eg they might form an upcoming animation) you can place each asset in
a frame of score - one after the other OFF-STAGE (not visible). You can then
create a progress bar for these by simply tweening a shape on stage across the
range of frames.

When the movie plays, it loads each asset, but the only thing you see on the
stage is the expanding shape

hth


johnAq

From: rafa on 15 Jan 2008 09:51
Thanks everyone for your quick replies.

Sean:
The project is not that big, so loading time is not the issue. The thing is
that my client WANTS to see the load bar (he likes it and cant live without it
I guess). I have done the fast start stub and also the bitmap graphic technique
in the past. I did not feel the stub projector made my project load faster, it
actually took longer. The bitmap graphic helps a lot visually for the user. But
like I said, he wants a load bar.

johnAq:
What you just mention is what I am looking for. A load bar that shows the
progress of some animation that is to come. Something that I can tell it to
show progress of the loading of members between frame 1 and frame 50 for
example. that way I can use it in other places with animation and just change
the frame numbers that the bar needs to load....

Any ideas on how to do this???

Thank you again everyone.

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