Using the Bandwith profiler in .NET

Creating QR-Code in .NET Using the Bandwith profiler

If you ve been working with Flash for a bit, you know that it does a wonderful job of compressing movies into a compact package However, sometimes the files can get large, especially if you have lots of bitmap images in your movie If you ve been taking the advice of this book, you ve created an interface into which other content loads However, in spite of the petite interface, some of your content may cause bandwidth problems In reality, what happens is that if your movie exceeds a user s bandwidth (the number of kilobytes per second that she can download at her connection speed), the movie stops playing while it waits for additional frames to load With a preloader, you prevent

bandwidth interruptus (a condition I just invented) by loading all the essential elements while the preload loop plays To see whether you need a preloader for your movie, you use the Bandwidth Profiler as follows: 1 Choose Control Test Movie Flash publishes the movie and plays it in another window 2 Choose View Download Settings and select a connection speed from the menu I generally test my movies at the 288 setting Testing at this setting ensures that even viewers with slow dialup connections remember those can view your movie without interruption If you re relatively sure that your viewing audience accesses the Internet at a different connection speed, change to the setting nearest to that connection speed You can also create a custom setting if your viewers access the Internet with a cable modem or ISDN Choose View Download Settings Customize and modify any or all the user settings to suit your needs 3 Choose View Bandwidth Profiler While you re looking at this menu section, make sure that you also have the Streaming Graph option selected 4 Choose View Simulate Download Flash begins playing the movie as it will load at the connection speed you selected in Step 2 As the movie plays, a green bar scrolls across the timeline at the top of the window, showing the movie s downloading progress A downward-pointing arrow indicates the frame being played Watch the arrow as the movie plays If it catches up with the scrolling green bar and stops, that s a bad thing It means that your movie will be interrupted while additional frames load If this happens, you need a preloader

After you decide that a viewer s bandwidth may not be up to speed, you build a preloader and then create the ActionScript to make it work The most primitive preloader is shown in this set of steps The preloader displays Loading, which can get rather hypnotic when it plays over and over and over and over and over yawn, stretch until the movie loads To script the preloader, download the preloaderfla file from the Web site associated with this book and then follow these steps:

1 Launch Flash, choose File Open, navigate to the folder where you copied the preloaderfla file, and then open the file Flash opens the file, and you see the main scene of the movie I ve already created the content and a preloader scene for you 2 Click the Edit Scene button near the upper-right corner of the workspace and choose Preloader from the drop-down menu The Preloader scene opens Notice that three layers of content are already set up The first two layers contain the elements that keep your viewers entertained while the site loads The third layer conveniently labeled Actions is where you write your ActionScript 3 Click the first frame in the Actions layer to select it 4 Choose Window Properties The Properties Inspector opens 5 In the <Frame Label> field, type preloadLoop and press Enter or Return Flash labels the frame 6 Select the eleventh frame on the Actions layer and convert it to a keyframe by pressing F6 7 Choose Window Actions The Actions panel opens 8 Click Statements Conditions/Loops and then double-click the if action The action appears in the Script pane, and the Condition parameter text box opens 9 Place your cursor inside the Conditions field and type _framesloaded >= This might remind you of your high school math class It s your basic greater-than-or-equal-to math operand Don t move that cursor yet 10 Type the number of the frame that you determined is causing the movie to stop Remember to add 12 frames for the number of frames in the preloader The statement you just created is checking to see if the number of frames loaded is greater than or equal to the number of frames you determined need to load in order for the movie to play in its entirety Now you need to tell Flash what will happen when this condition is true 11 Click Global Functions Timeline Control and then double-click goto Flash adds the goto action and the parameter text boxes appear