Only play on first load?

Question

Hello!
I'm embedding a .swf file into my home page, very small and simple.
However, I only want this movie to play the first time someone visits that page — after that, I'd like to swap out for a static image — or just not have the movie play.
Anyway to do this?
d

Answer 1

I actually just did this for a project recently.
You'll need to use javascript to add a cookie to the browser. Then with javascript you can control what you want to show up.
You'll want to change the 7 in the following line to something longer if you want it to last longer than 7 days.
setCookie('visit',visit,7);
You can use this code and just replace the bottom couple lines to make them do what you want it to do. I use SWFObject inside that IF-statement to display different content.
<script language="JavaScript" type="text/javascript">
    setupMovie(checkCookie());
    function setCookie(c_name,value,expiredays)
        var exdate=new Date();
        exdate.setDate(exdate.getDate()+expiredays);
        document.cookie=c_name+ "=" +escape(value)+
        ((expiredays==null) ? "" : ";expires="+exdate.toGMTString());
    function getCookie(c_name)
        if (document.cookie.length>0)
            c_start=document.cookie.indexOf(c_name + "=");
            if (c_start!=-1)
                c_start=c_start + c_name.length+1;
                c_end=document.cookie.indexOf(";",c_start);
                if (c_end==-1) c_end=document.cookie.length;
                    return unescape(document.cookie.substring(c_start,c_end));
        return "";
    function checkCookie()
        visit=getCookie('visit');
        if (visit!=null && visit!="")
            //alert('Welcome again '+visit+'!');
            return true;
        else
            visit='visited';
            if (visit!=null && visit!="")
                setCookie('visit',visit,7);
                return false;
    function setupMovie(cookieExists)
          if(cookieExists)
               // Load SWF and Preview it
          else
               // Show alternative content like a JPG or set the SWF's autoplay to false;
</script>