Shockwave Go Loader

Date: Wed, 24 Jan 1996 09:34:10 -0700
From: Alan Levine <levine@MARICOPA.EDU>
Subject: SW: go-to loader
I hate the shockwave wall paper. I hate worse watching an empty screen while a .dcr downloads. To that end, we have started using small (4k) front end shockwave movies to load fast, that display a pleasant message while the main movie loads.

For every movie "mymovie.dcr", I create a second on called "go-mymovie.dcr" It must the same dimensions. I use the same stagecolor as the main movie

The "go-" movie has one cast- a 1-bit bitmap text message "this is a maricopa shockwave zone.

The "go-movie" has 4 frames with cast 1 in sprite 1 of each

  1. (no script just in case of frame 1 weirdness)
  2. frame script: 
    on exitframe
  gotoNetmovie "http://www.blah.blah..../mymovie.dcr"
  puppetSprite 1,1  -- used so we can animate the text
                    -- (not really necessary)
end
  3. no action, just roll ahead....
  4. frame script: 
    on exitFrame
  go to the frame - 1
  set the forecolor of sprite 1 to random (255)
end

So while shockwave starts the connection process in frame 2, it forges ahead and bounces in an animation until it is ready to transfer to the main movie.

I am sure there are creative ways to keep the viewer's attention. One can go a long way by pre-loading movies during periods of user inaction.

Loooking at the empty space while the meter crawls "200k to download" makes my finger itchy for the STOP button.