Slow "compile" to swf. What makes fla's change size?

[paron]

I am working on a "wizard" style frontend with 7 pages or states. I set it up as 7 labeled segments of a timeline. So far, I have a movie with 6 placeholder pages consisting of 1 textbox on each, and 1 "real" page that has a couple of radiobutton groups and half-dozen dynamic textboxes. I have a "next" and "previous" pushbutton.

The question: What on earth did I do that makes that a 490 kb fla file? It takes about 3 minutes to "compile" a test movie! I am getting caught up on my tech journals while waiting.

I tried:
-- doing a "Save As" -- got it down to 350 kb, still slow as a Sunday afternoon in January.
-- cutting the whole timeline and pasting it into a new movie -- down to 290 kb, still obscenely slow
-- compiling the only page with any real content into a swf, which I load at runtime -- down to 77kb for the main movie, but still over 90 sec. to compile!

Oddly, the resulting swf files got smaller when I pasted everything into a new file. Good to know, but doesn't compile much faster.

What am I not understanding about the "compile" step, or the Flash editor, or Macromedia components, or whatever that makes this thing so big and slow?

Ron

 

[billwatson]

do you mean it takes that long to publish ?

if so then there is something badly wrong somewhere.

even at 400+k for an fla thats not too large. depending on whats in it the published file (swf) will only be a small percentage of that.

i just published a larger file than yours (900k) by way of comparison and my old home pc it took less than 10 seconds.

it cant be code causing the problem otherwise you would get an error message

 

[paron]

Yeah, I am very puzzled. I have several other files that size and they aren't anything like that slow.

Before I did the steps in my first post, I went through and commented out my code, function by function -- no joy. I erased a component at a time until there was almost nothing left, no improvement. That's when I tried cutting and pasting into a blank timeline, which helped somewhat. I also went through and rewrote the main timeline and it was fine until I added that page. That page by itself compiles to a 42 kb swf.

The only thing on that page that isn't anywhere else in the movie is the two radio button groups.

Do they have a reputation for being slow or anything? I can re-code the whole thing, adding a component and testing until it happens again. I just hoped someone had already figured it out.

 

[paron]

Ok, I fixed it. I copied the frames from that one page into a blank file and it went from a 296 kb fla to 84 kb, and from a 2 min. compile to instantaneous. The swf went from 42 to 28 kb.

I apparently corrupted the fla for that page somehow, and copying the frames from the whole movie didn't fix it, but copying the frames from just that page into a new movie worked a treat.

I would still be very interested to find out what I did wrong, and why what I did fixed it.

 

[paron]

Hold the phone. If I paste the frames into a blank file and compile right away, it's quick -- instantaneous. If I save the file, it is a 60 sec or so compile for an 84kb fla file. WIERD.

I guess I'll rebuild from scratch and try to determine where the egg hits the fan.

 

[paron]

OK, the egg hits the fan if you have ever added a Macromedia RadioButton group to the movie. Even if you erase it.

Once you have put a RadioButton on the page, the compile will be slow. Very, very slow. And the only way to get it speeded up is to copy all the other components into a new, blank timeline.

 

[billwatson]

i often use radio buttons without seeing this problem

remember that if you are adding a few radio buttons just drag the first one from the components panel onto the stage and all others to make up the group drag from the library.

 

[paron]

Nope, Bill, I have tried every setting known to man, and it comes out the same -- those RadioButton components are SLOW for me, even if I am careful to drag them from the library instead of the Components window. And once I have added them, the file is slow to publish even if I delete them.

I am coding around them. Haven't had any particular problem with any other components, though -- just the RadioButtons.