FLASH: Why can I get the 'If frame is loaded" action to work in a button

[Jeff Sibley]

I have built an Flash movie where the first 30 frames of the movie are a

preloader animation in which I have use an "If frame is loaded" action

in a loop to keep the animation from playing until enought of the frames

have loaded to ensure smooth play. When the the animation reaches the

end of the movie at frame 30 it stops and Flash continues to stream the

rest of the movie frames. My problem is that on frame 30 I have some

navigation buttons that point to other frames beyond frame 30 and if I

click one of these buttons before the referenced frame is fully loaded,

the action delivers a blank screen because streaming for that frame

isn't complete.


I tried using the preloader again by putting a "go to" action in the

buttons to moved the playhead to 2 frame loop in which the "If frame

loaded" action checks for frame loaded before moving to the frame, but I

have not been able to get this to work. If it worked for the begining

animation, why not here?? Is it some how related to the buttons being

movie clips with seperate timelines and as such, cannot refer back to

the main timeline without help???? Why can't you just put "If frames

loaded" into a button and be done with it?


I have also tried converting all frames after frame 30 to movie clips

and then using the "Load movie" action in the buttons to load the movie

clips. This works but it revomes Flash's streaming advantage and

requires a pause to load each movie clip into the movie. I would prefer

to make one big movie and use Flash's steaming capability to keep the

movie loading while the viewer is pausing.


I tried several arrangements of the "Tell target" action but I am

confused about the right way to build this and have had no success. Do I

need to build a movie clip of the buttons and then use the "Tell target"

action to refer to the main movie timeline.


I have checked the Macromedia web site and many other Flash web sites

but have not found a solution. Can anyone can show me light????????



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