pulling images from a folder -> theory

[jeremy*]

I would like to create a swf that pulls images from a folder, creates a thumbnail for them and preloads them. This would have to work like a bare template that could pull 2 or 20 images depending on what folder it is placed in.

I'm not asking for code here, what I would like to get from you is thoughts on what works, and what doesn't. paste code if you want to explain someting, but really I just want to be able to wrap my head around this, and then code it myself, and comeback here with specific questions if I run into problems. I would like to keep this to just flash and php if at all possible.

Thank you in advance.

[eyezberg]

-reading folder contents with php is easy, i posted a script for that in server-side
-thumbnails are useless, just load and resize, then when you want to show th pic full-size, you don't have to load it again :)
-preloading..not hard either, depends on how you want to set this up: read in number of pics, and start preloading straight away, or on user click..but if you wanna show all thumbnails, maybe it is better to create a specials thumbs folder, load all these, and then start preloading the big ones while the user browses the thumbs.. make your choices, check out http://www.flashcomponents.net/components.cfm?nav=2&cat=0 , they have some good ones, or http://www.abrahamyan.com/navigation.html has a nice one too..

[pom]

Originally posted by eyezberg
[B-thumbnails are useless, just load and resize, then when you want to show th pic full-size, you don't have to load it again :)[/B]That's the whole point of thumbnails: not to have to load the full-size picture :P

[eyezberg]

yes, but why load an extra pic each if you can resize the originals in flash and load only once, if you set up a good, sequential preloader ( http://www.helpqlodhelp.com/blog/archives/000019.html#more ) and start with maybe 5-10 pics/thumbs visible, and continue loading the rest in the bg...
all depends on size and quality, if you'd be better of using a real small thumb for quite heavy pics, or just load once for medium sizes..

[jeremy*]

sorry, I should have said that the preloading/thumbnail was just for description sake, I am far more concerned with pulling the images from a folder and droping them into flash.

[mlk]

flash won't create the thumbs itself - but photoshop batches will - and small 30color gifs don't take too much up too much space. Not sure they can be dynamically loaded though...