Now that you have completed your Portfolio.swf movie, we can add the Loader component that will load the external Portfolio movie into your main movie. Because this Portfolio will take a few seconds to download into the main movie, we will also add a ProgressBar component (also called a preloader) to keep your audience informed of the download process. Open you main movie website into Flash.

Step 1. Add Loader Component. Click on Frame 50 (first frame of the Portfolio webpage section) on the Content layer in the Timeline. Now click outside of the Stage to deselected everything on the Stage. You will find the Loader component in the Components Panel. Drag an instance of the Loader onto the Stage. Place the Loader in the upper left corner under the Menu. In the Property Inspector, set the <Instance Name> of this component to loaderPortfolio.

Step 2. Set Parameters for Loader. Your Portfolio.swf file should be in the same folder as your main movie file. Go to the Component Inspector Panel and set the following values. This will tell Flash where to find the Portfolio.swf file and to scale the Loader component to the dimensions of the Portfolio.swf movie.

contentPath: Portfolio.swf
scaleContent: false

Step 3. Test the Loader. Click on Frame 1 to move the Playhead back to the beginning. Now press the Ctrl and Enter keys on your keyboard to preview your website movie. Your Portfolio.swf movie should load into the main website movie when you click on the Portfolio button in the Menu.

Step 4. Save your changes. You can now save the changes that you have added so far.

Now we are ready to add the ProgressBar component. This component did not ship with Flash MX 2004. You must download the updater file for this version of Flash from the Adobe - Macromedia website.

http://www.macromedia.com/support/flash/downloads.html#updaters

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