This website had an interesting need that required thinking outside the box in order to solve. The website was a standard wordpress build but the client had a very unique request. They had a movie they wanted to play on a loop, but they wanted the first part to play the first time and not the subsequent times. Now, it is easy enough to start a video part of the way in and have it loop from there but having a video play in this fashion is not a traditional request.

I searched high and low for a way to do it using existing video embed technology but it was to no avail. The solution lay in a hybridization of technologies, a unique mix of animated gifs, jquery, and you tube embed customization. This ended up taking me way outside the realm of wordpress design but it is a great example of the way in which web designers must also be problem solvers for a variety of technical issues.

The specific solution was to overlay the video with the animated gif. Then I used jquery to fade in the gif, so that the full video actually played and yet the gif obscured it as it faded in and appeared to loop the video, an illusion.

Of course, it is wise to use jquery sparingly since it can conflict across certain libraries in wordpress. You should get in the habit of running your jquery in no conflict mode, it is just good practice.