Preload External Jpgs

Question

What is the easiest way to preload external jpgs? The client
wants to update these frequently so they should be external, but I
want them to show up instantly like the rest of the site once the
preloading is done.

Any advice? I had thought about loading them into the
preloader (at 0% alpha), so that they'd be loaded into the cache
during preload, so that when the home page comes up, they'd be all
ready to go? But if it's a different instance of the movieclip,
will it reload the jpg? Or any time i use that external jpg in the
flash file will it already be in the cache?

Thanks. I've heard a few different things and would love your
advice.

Jeremy

Greg Dove · Answer

There are two different things here. pre-caching (I don't know what else to call it) and pre-loading.

It is possible to pre-cache files off the same server. If you load into different instances then it should get it from the cache, so yes that would speed things up. But... results are dependent on an unknown factor: the user's cache settings. If its set to never cache you could end up downloading 'to the cache' and just wasting bandwidth.
You can read about that approach here.
http://www.actionscript.com/Article/tabid/54/ArticleID/Preloading-Files-into-the-Browser-s-Cache/Default.aspx

Then there's the regular preload approach where you preload into movieclips (perhaps with ._visible=false or 0% ._alpha etc).
You can find a lot of info relevant to that here:
http://www.quip.net/blog/2007/flash/actionscript-20/tracking-multiple-files-part1
http://www.quip.net/blog/2007/flash/actionscript-20/tracking-multiple-files-part2

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