Actionscript Cookbook

15.1. Loading an External SWF

Problem

You want to load an external SWF into your Flash movie.

Solution

Use the loadMovie( ) method.

Discussion

The loadMovie( ) method is the preferred technique for loading external .swf files into a Flash movie. You should call this method from the movie clip into which you want to load the .swf file and pass it the URL at which the .swf file can be found:

// Load a .swf file into myMovieClip using a relative URL to a file in the same
// directory as the loading Flash movie.
myMovieClip.loadMovie("mySWF.swf");

// Load a .swf file into myMovieClip using a full URL to a file within the same
// domain as the loading Flash movie.
myMovieClip.loadMovie("http://www.mydomain.com/path/mySWF.swf");

Flash’s security sandbox prevents Flash movies from loading assets from different domains. In other words, a Flash movie being served from www.mydomain.com can load a .swf file from www.mydomain.com or any other server in the same domain (such as www2.mydomain.com), but it cannot load a .swf file from www.yourdomain.com. Recipe 15.2 describes how you can create trusted relationships between domains using allowDomain( ). Recipe 15.6 shows a different approach that uses a proxy script to load content from any domain.

The loadMovie( ) method replaces the timeline of the movie clip from which it is called with the timeline of the specified .swf. All existing content within the movie clip is wiped out when loadMovie( ) is called. Therefore, it is convenient to use the ...