Flash Preloader: Why You Need to Add a Preloader to Your Flash Animation

If you use a Flash animation or Flash movie on your website that is larger than 40kb, it is generally recommended that you add a preloader to the Flash file.

This article explains:

• what is a Flash preloader;
• what are the benefits of using a preloader for your Flash movie; Y
• how you can easily create Flash preloaders without using Adobe Flash.

What is a Flash preloader?

A Flash preloader is a graphical indicator that tells the viewer that a Flash animation is loading and shows the progress of the download, usually in percentages. This gives the visitor an idea of ​​how long they have to wait before they can see the animated content.

Flash preloaders can display download progress in percentages, or the number of bytes/kilobytes loaded, or a combination of both.

They may just be a number on the screen that goes up to 100%, but most of the time, Flash preloaders are graphical images that provide a visual indication of progress.

Examples are a horizontal percentage bar or a progress bar that is filled with a color, or a circle to which little pieces of the ‘pie’ are added until the process has literally come ‘full circle’, and many more.

Why should I use a Flash preloader?

Anyone who spends any time on the Internet will know that people (you, me and everyone else) are impatient. We don’t like to wait. And what is worse than waiting is not knowing how long they will make us wait. In which case we won’t wait. We went out!

Internet users will quickly abandon a website that has large Flash files that take time to load. Especially if there is no preloader to display to the visitor:

1. that something is charging, and

2. How long will it take for the Flash movie to start playing?

Are you aware that broadband penetration is still quite low in some countries? This includes the largest English-speaking online target market, the United States, where only around 30% of people have a broadband (DSL or cable) connection (according to 2008 OECD statistics).

It all comes down to two things: communication and expectation. By telling people through your Flash preloader that you’re working on something and where you’re at with it, they know what to expect. That calms them down. They could spend that couple of seconds looking at other things on your web page. But chances are your visitors will stick around to see your awesome Flash effect or awesome Flash movie.

 

Being more than a few seconds late and NOT saying anything to your visitor will surely make most of them click the ‘Back’ button and possibly run towards your competitor. And because you have given them a negative experience, many of them will NEVER return to your website.

 

If you can afford to lose visitors, customers, and leads, that’s fine. But you could easily add a cool Flash preloader to your animation and keep those people on your site. So the question is not: why would you use a Flash preloader? The real question is: why wouldn’t you?

 

How to add a flash preloader to your Flash file?

Creating a Flash preloader in Adobe Flash can be a bit tricky. If you are an expert user, you should be able to find many tutorials online for creating all kinds of Flash preloaders.

 

However, if you just want a quick and easy way to add a preloader to your Flash animation, there are some great solutions for you. Flash Preloader software’s special tools come with many different preloader templates that you can quickly customize to match the colors and style of your website.

 

Simply import your Flash animation into the program, select a preloader template and make a few changes to make it look the way you want it to look, and the program will give you the preloader either as a file embedded in a SWF file or as a preloader from External flash, whatever you prefer. Curious about what my Flash preloaders look like and how they work? See several different examples of Flash preloaders here.