If you’re seeking web developer jobs, it’s very important that you stay on top of emerging web development trends. One of the things Flash can do that straight-up HTML cannot (but HTML + JavaScript can) is dynamically load elements. This results in a faster experience for the user. Some of the most common elements, of course, are images.

So, here are two examples for dynamically loading an image, the first in ActionScript 2 (which is rapidly falling by the wayside) and the second using its successor, ActionScript 3 (for Flash 9 and later).

In the case of ActionScript 2, we’ll be using the createEmptymovieClip() and loadMovie() methods:

// ActionScript 2.0
var url:String = "http://www.helpexamples.com/flash/images/image2.jpg";
var movieClip:MovieClip = createEmptyMovieClip("movieClip", 0);
movieClip.loadMovie(url);

As for ActionScript 3, we would just use the Loader class:

//ActionScript 3.0
var url:String = http://www.helpexamples.com/flash/images/image2.jpg;
var urlRequest:URLRequest = new URLRequest(url);
var loader:Loader = new Loader();
loader.load(urlRequest);
addChild(loader);

Of course, one might ask, “Why don’t I just include all those images in my swf when I export it?” Well, you could do that. And end up with a massively bloated swf that takes way too long to download. As a marketable freelance web developer, you’ll want to avoid this, since people’s attention spans tend to be quite short on the internet. Not only that, but bandwidth can become expensive, so sending as few bytes from your server(s) to your visitors is also good for the pocketbook.