Hands-On: Flash MX 2004 Adding a Progress Bar to a Movie

The ProgressBar component is a welcome addition to the MX 2004 edition. If your movie takes a while to load, this component will show the progress of the download by a moving bar and the percentage loaded. This could be used as a Preloader by itself or in addition to a Preloader Movie you have created.

Exercise 39: Adding a ProgressBar Component to a Movie

1. Open the Components panel.
2. Click the UI Components expand plus mark [+] to open its contents.
3. Drag the ProgressBar component onto the Stage.
4. Select the new ProgressBar component with the mouse.
5. Give the ProgressBar component a unique instance name in the Properties Inspector. (myBar)
6. Open the Component Inspector panel
7. In the Parameters tab click the Mode list arrow, and then click Event.
8. Drag a Loader component from the Components panel onto the Stage.
9. Give the Loader component a unique instance name in the Properties Inspector (myLoader).



10. Select the ProgressBar component on the Stage.
11. Click the Parameters tab in the Component Inspector panel, and then enter the instancename of the Loader into the value field (myLoader).
12. Select Frame 1 in the Timeline. (This may be the only frame you have if this is a new exercise file.)
13. Enter the script shown below from the Actions – Frame panel that will load a .swf or .jpg file into the Loader component. (Enter the file name of your own movie where you see my movie file name “crossfireNEW.swf”.)
14. Click [Control] + [Enter] to check out your new ProgressBar in action.

Note: You are not adding scripts to the components on the Stage; these components are activated by scripts in Frame 1 on the Timeline, and are identified by using unique instance names for each component.