okay, so i posted this in webdesign with lil help, but fortunately, i found this community, so maybe someone here can help??? i'm just going to post what i posted there (and i'm also gonna post one of my own comments, which might better explain the problem).

my original topic :

okay, so i'm semi-familiar with preloaders, but mostly with flash 4. i just recently got flash mx. the big thing about my site (literally) is this one big image that appears right off. the problem is, i created this simple lil percentage like preloader (it's a white skull that fills with pink, using a mask, on a separate scene) but since the image is just there, on 1 given frame, i can't say 'if frame _ is loaded, goto..' to move my loader along to each step (they are in 10% increments). follow? if i just say 'if frame _x_ is loaded, goto..' where x is the frame that image is in, well, it'd kinda defeat the purpose of having a percentage-like preloader.. any help?

..and one of my comments :

okay, when you make a percentage pre-loader (and not the automated kinda, but yer own animated one) you put in however many frames you want the percentage increments to be in. mine goes in 10% increments, so i have 10 keyframes in my loader, which are actually separated by 5 frames (so that the bar doesn't just jump from one to the other, so it grows smoothly). then, on the first 10% keyframe, normally, you calculate 10% into the overall .swf (say, scene 2 frame 14) and you say 'if frame 14 is loaded goto and play frame 2' which would then move the loader along until it hits the next keyframe, which would then say 'if frame _ is loaded.. goto..' etc. MY problem is, most of my site that needs loading is just ONE image on ONE keyframe (the first one on the 2nd scene) so i really can't do it that way. cuz if i said 'if scene 2 frame 1 is loaded..' then the site would already be loaded 99% ... follow?

there's an automated thing (i know it's in mx but i'm not sure if it's in anything prior) that just makes it's own percentage counter, in numbers (usually in kilobytes) that calculates the actual filesize of the entire .swf file and does it all for you, but it's just numbers and i actually drew up my own visual pre-loader (the skull).. so yeah.

HELP ME!?
thanks..