Stripped Bar Preloader

Create a BEAUTIFUL flash preloader in an instant!

How to add the preloader to your flash game.
Just add a single line, in your actionscript code:
Frame(factoryClass="com.elouai.utils.PreloaderBar")]
(Need access to Flash/Flex Builder or the compiler mxmlc.exe)


Below is a looping demo of the Stripped Bar Flash Preloader.
Loops between determinate and indeterminate states (percent and bytes loaded).

Works with Gzip Servers
Works flawlessy as an indeterminate preloader in a gzipped environment (displays bytes loaded). See it in action, preloader for a flash Dress up Game
Running a large I have seen too many preloaders that break and fail to load in such an evironment. For my environment having to turn OFF the gzip costs me about $300 more a month in bandwidth charges. For larger websites, the cost EASILY runs into the thousands.
Its not feasible or EVEN DESIRABLE to change that setting, so instead of changing the server settings make sure your preloader can work in ANY environment.

Tweening Preloader
Eye Candy showing 'zip' in the numbers motion by tweening a vertical blur on each update on the changed numbers. Captivates and holds the clients on the app / page.

Rock Solid
Tight, fast, efficient code and a small footprint, reuses objects, easy to build on top of.

Monitoring Progress
Counting and displaying bytes or percent loaded, and if we know the total bytes (if the swf is NOT compressed by the web server) we can display percent complete, otherwise we fall back to bytes loaded display.

Another option was counting frames as the app loaded. This should NOT be done, most games (or applications) tend to be a single frame. The preloader would be frozen at 1%, waiting until the game completes the load for however many seconds (or minutes it takes) before jumping to 100% complete. Hence I did NOT offer it as an option in the code.

Goals of a Preloader.
Primarily; Show progress of the downloading app (visual feedback to indicate a live product, read as 'not frozen' or crashed).
Secondly; Entertain the user (not to lose them and have them click elsewhere) while waiting for the application to load.
Thirdly; Keep memory footprint low. Its a balancing act between the previous two point, The upper limit for the preloader should be around 200Kb, and only if the app if over 1Mb.

Compiled size of preloader.
The compiled size of the preloader is 66Kb. Possible to reduce to as little as 10Kb by replacing the bitmaped alphabet class with system fonts.

Actionscript3 only project.
Works completely with actionscript, no need to fiddle around in adobe flash cs3/cs4/cs5. Ideally suited for the Flex. Can be used with Flash Builder, Flash Develop or favorite action script Development environment.