This is the first in a series of Tips & Tricks that we will post on our website. We often get requests from clients and associates for tips, and this is one that seems to be requested frequently. We hope this serves as a benefit to everyone. Let us know if you want to see more tips!

In this lesson we will demonstrate how to load external Flash movies into a main movie container. A major benefit of loading external movies is file size as well as ease of updating content. By loading only the movies you or your visitors want to view, you can keep your initial movie size smaller. Additionally, by breaking your movies up into separate sections, you can keep your information updated without having to edit the entire file. This is especially beneficial for information that gets updated regularly. We have used this technique in developing eLearning lessons in order to extend the life of the eLearning modules.

For this lesson we'll assume you already know how to create a basic Flash movie.

Create several flash movies into distinguishable sections, such as Products, Services, etc. We will load these separate movies into our main "container" movie. This movie will always remain at Level 0 and we'll load the other movies on top of it at Level 1.

Open the movie you want to use as the background or main movie, this will be the movie that you use to load the other movies into. In our example, it's "mainmovie.swf". This is the framework movie so we don't have any buttons, just main graphics and possibly some text. Instead of using a button to load the first movie, we'll apply a frame action that loads the first external movie when the movie begins.

Load Move Action
To load the first movie when the main movie is launched, create a frame action that loads the movie. Click in Frame 1 of the background movie and in the Actions Panel, click Actions|Browser/Network and then double click loadMovie. The loadMovieNum action appears in the first line.

In the URL field, type in the exact name of the first movie you want to load. In our example, we use: movie1.swf. This is the path to the movie so be sure to type the path correctly. In our example we're using relative paths.

For Level, choose any number greater than 0. Level 0 is where the main movie layer is stored so you want to load your other movies on top of it. We'll just load the other movies in Level 1, above our main, background movie.

Save the movie to a common folder with your other movies.

Create loadMovie Actions
Our main movie, mainmovie.swf had the loadMovie action on the first frame. For the other movies, we'll create button actions that load the appropriate movie when the viewer clicks on it.

Open the movie1.fla movie, and click on the last frame in your movie. This is where all of your graphics are in their final position and you can easily access the buttons. In the example we're showing our last frame is frame 45.

Add the Button Actions
Click once on the button you want to go to next, say Services. Go to the Actions Panel and under Actions|Browser/Network, double click loadMovie. Type in services.swf and enter 1 for the Level. Continue adding the actions for any other buttons (products.swf, contacts.swf, etc) in the same manner. You will then also need to add the same button actions for the rest of your movies.