Flash Tutorial:

How to make a XML driven external Flash SWF preloader?

Aleo Software provides a free XML driven external Flash SWF preloader. The preloader can change it's stage width, height, preloader color and background color according to the parameters defined in a XML file. This tutorial will show you how to customize and use it.

Step 1

Download the free Flash SWF preloader file designed by Aleo Software at http://www.aleosoft.com/download/freepreloader.zip.

Unzip the downloaded package, you will get two files:

• preloader.swf
• preloader.xml

Step 2

Open the preloader.xml with a text editor, e.g. Windows Notepad. The code in this file is as following:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<preloader src="flash.swf" width="480" height="125" bgcolor="0x000000" color="0xFFFFFF" />

Change the value of scr to the filename of your Flash SWF file to be loaded.

Change the values of width and height to those of your Flash SWF file to be loaded.

Step 3

Upload the preloader.swf and preloader.xml to the same folder as your Flash SWF file to be loaded.

Step 4

Copy and paste following code to your web page which you want to insert your Flash SWF file.

<object classid="clsid:D27CDB6E-AE6D-11cf-96B8-444553540000" codebase="http://fpdownload.macromedia.com/pub/shockwave/cabs/flash/swflash.cab#version=8,0,0,0" width="480" height="125">
<param name="movie" value="preloader.swf" />
<param name="quality" value="high" />
<embed src="preloader.swf"
quality="high"
type="application/x-shockwave-flash"
width="480"
height="125"
pluginspage="http://www.macromedia.com/go/getflashplayer" />
</object>

Please change the values of width and height (two places) to those of your Flash SWF file to be loaded.

Please note:

1. You must upload the preloader.swf, preloader.xml and your Flash SWF file to the same folder as your web page which you want to insert the Flash banner.

2. If you want to change the filename of "preloader.swf", you must also change the filename of the xml file. For example, if you change the filename "preloader.swf" to "loader.swf", you must change the XML filename to "loader.xml".

Example: