BulkLoader: Removing the Pain of Complex Loading In Flash

Loading content into mid to large scale Flash projects can be somewhat of painful process. From managing complex loading scenarios to behind the scenes preloading, if not done correctly, performance can really take a hit at the expense of preloading.

Before you know it, you have spent a lot more time than expected managing the loading of a project’s content. A very handy solution to this madness is BulkLoader created by Albert Debert.

What is BulkLoader?

BulkLoader is a minimal library written in ActionScript 3.0 that aims to make loading and managing complex loading requirements easier and faster. BulkLoader takes a more dynamic, less architecture heavy approach. Few imports and making heavy use of AS3′s dynamic capabilities, BulkLoader has a one-liner feel that doesn’t get in your way.

Using Bulkloader in your Flash projects allows you a powerful yet easy approach to taking control of when and how your content is being loading.  Once you’ve gotten a taste of BulkLoader, you’ll wonder how you’d ever get by without it.  Thankfully, the BulkLoader library is licensed under an open source MIT license and is currently hosted at Google Code.

It’s features include:

• Connection pooling.
• Unified interface for different loading types.
• Unified progress notification.
• Events for individual items and as groups.
• Priority loading
• Stop and resuming individually as well as in bulk.
• Cache management.
• Statistics about loading (latency, speed, average speed).
• Various kinds on progress indication: ratio (items loaded / items to load), bytes , and weighted percentage.
• Configurable number of retries.
• Configurable logging.
• Various asset types (XML, NetStreams, Swfs, Images, Sound, Text Files)

Additional Resources:

• Download BulkLoader
• Getting Started
• Developer Guide