Kindof getting desperate looking for some direction on this - basically, i’ve been putting together Flash ads for a while (MPUs, banners, skyscrapers, etc…) and as clients are becoming more demanding the filesizes are going up and up. Problem is, many of the sites these get hosted on state a 30kb maximum initial load for the creative, allowing you to call in your full-size creative when the full page has finished loading (‘polite’). Previously i’ve accomplished this with the DoubleClick components but, ‘credit-crunch’ and all, we’re no longer using them to serve our files.
My question is, how would I go about achieving this in Flash without using their components? Is this a function I can build into my flash ads myself? Do I just need to get the ad to detect when the host page has finished loading then call-in/replace itself with the new, full-weight creative? Arg…i’m on deadline here and i’m stuck! Any ideas?
Sort of…it does need preloader functionality but, basically, I need some method for a flash movie to display a ‘loading’ movie whilst it waits for the host HTML page to finish loading completely (scripts, text, images, etc). Then, when it finds that the host page has finished loading, it calls in the full-size flash movie (via LoadMovieNum). I can get the flash file to call in the next movie fine, but I don’t know the procedure to make the initial .swf wait for the HTML it’s on to finish loading.
I see. After searching some forums, it basically says that it cant be done… Flash doesnt have the ability to see the percentage loaded of a .html.
But there is something else you can do: use javascript. It seems that javascript is actually capable of seeing the loaded percentage. Maybe you could use javascript first, to load the entire .html, and than load the .swf.
Im not a javascripter, so cant help you any further here. But its a start Good luck, and tell us when or if it worked!
So are you concerned about file size? If they ad host only allows 30kb max, couldnt you basically submit them a preloader type file that loads an AD hosted on your server?
You must be misunderstading their stipulations. They could mean that you just have to wait until the loading of your flash is completely done before loading other assets. If they truly do think that flash can just detect the percentage of all html, scripts, images, requests that js is making, etc that are loading in the page around it, then they don’t know squat about Flash (or the browsers for that matter), and won’t know the difference if you just make a timer that delays for 2 seconds before loading stuff.
The only possible way to do it (which probably isn’t an option if you’re making banner ads, because it’s not your webpage, just your flash) is that I believe HTML has an event for being completely loaded that can call javascript, and javascript can talk to flash. It wouldn’t give you a percentage, but you’d know when the page was done at least.
I’m honestly very curious now, what website is stipulating that you do this?
Hi guys…thanks for the responses. Perhaps i’m just explaining it badly…but you’ve got it right, rondog - they want you to supply an initial load file (that can simply be a preloader or a condensed version of your whole ad) that calls in a bigger flash creative. They just don’t want you trying to load a 2mb flv file into an MPU or Skyscraper before their nice editorial has finished loading…
I did just what you say MBMedia - I created a preloader file of 15kb with a few assets in it, that simply calls in my bigger movie after 3 seconds. I got away with it! It should be live now. In terms of the websites that specify this, it’s quite common - Times Online, Telegraph.co.uk, Travelmail.co.uk…a bunch of the big national newspaper ones in the UK. Doubleclick and Eyeblaster have components that give you this functionality (who knows…maybe they liase with javascript embed on the host page, but possible they just add a timer function), but I was after doing it/serving it myself.
@rodgersrodgers Did you ever find a solution for polite loading specs? I’d love to buy a template fla file from you if so. I’ve been asked to make a flash banner video ad, that adheres to the specs.
@rodgersrodgers Did you ever find a solution for polite loading specs? I’d love to buy a template fla file from you if so. I’ve been asked to make a flash banner video ad, that adheres to the specs.
I think a very simple solution is to embed the swf file on window.onload event.
Good luck, and tell us when or if it worked!