Fixing cursors that do not appear in Shockwave movies.

Date: Sun Feb 20 22:05:18 MST 2000
From: Michael Douma <info@michaeldouma.com>
Subject: Fixing cursors that do not appear in Shockwave movies.

Problem: Cursors do not appear in Shockwave movie, but DO in Director
Cause: Shockwave is a streaming media, and the cursors are not loaded
Solution: Force cursors to load

Details: Shockwave is a streaming technology so art, sounds etc. may not have down loaded when you expect. This is especially pronounced in Internet Explorer. The problem was that the custom cursor cast members were not being loaded (or better yet, downloaded) quick enough.

Solution One (from me):
Place cursor members in first frame, offstage.

Solution Two (via Alex Hamilton):
Do a preload of those two cast members, or used a frameready for that particular frame.

Solution Three (via Jonathan Tucker):
For example, Use a series of frames at the end of your score.
1. Place a marker there called "media"
2. Place the cursor art and any other assets you want under the media marker.
3. Before you assign the cursor to a variable use this in the score:

on exitFrame
  if Not frameReady("media") then
    go to the frame
  end if...

Thanks to Alex Hamilton and Jonathan Tucker for their help on this tip!