AS3: How to dynamically load movieclip from library without exporting in frame 1?

Question

I have some fairly large movieclips in the library which need to be dynamically loaded at runtime. I don't want to export them all in frame 1, because that would slow down initial loading of the movie.

I tried putting an instance of each of these clips later in the timeline where they wouldn't normally be encountered. When I then tried to load one from the library dynamically, I was able to successfully get an instance of the movieclip, but its currentFrame property was 0 and I couldn't see anything on the stage. As soon as I enabled "Export in frame 1", it worked properly.

Does this old trick of putting an instance on the timeline somewhere no longer work in AS3?

Answer 1

I have had similar issues with large library assets and to solve my issue I would always just put the assets into separate swf's and load the external swf file when I needed it.

Check out the Loader class 'content' property - http://livedocs.adobe.com/flash/9.0/ActionScriptLangRefV3/flash/display/Loader.html#content

The only downfall to this is managing the assets in separate files.

I hope this helps.