[Fwd: Proposal for Event::timeStamp attribute]

Here is a proposal for the timestamp attribute on the interface
Event.

Tom Pixley <joki@netscape.com> wrote [1]:
> 
> interface Event {
> ...
>   readonly attribute long timeStamp;
> }
> 
> description:
>         timeStamp specifies the time at which the event occurred in
> milliseconds relative to the system time. Due to the fact that some
> systems may not provide this information the value of timeStamp may be
> not avaiable for all events.  When not available, a value of 0 will be
> returned.
> 
> This attribute will also be added to the appropriate createEvent and
> derivative methods.

See also
From the DOM teleconference 20000202 [2] :
[ ... ]
Events: example not yet done. Timestamps have been asked for before;
maybe Level 3? Maybe requirements for SYMM WG? It's minor. Questions
about granularity, whether implementations need to give it, etc. Adding
in DOM Level 3 would be more complicated. Granularity is
system-dependent. Need to specify increment. Don't need to define start
times etc. Generating events - when is the timestamp? Time of creating
object, or when event fired? Maybe not available on a generated event.
Timestamps would be for UI events; maybe others. Probably add into
lower-level interface. Tom will write up our discussion and Philippe
will forward to SYMM WG. If agreed on, we'll add it to Level 2. One
week's time to get this done.

See also
From Patrick Schmitz <pschmitz@microsoft.com> in www-dom [3] :
[ ... ]
I cannot believe that I missed this in earlier reviews, but the Event
interface in  DOM 2 Events is missing a timestamp for the event.  Without
this, many common UI functions (like filtering small motions between click
down and click up) will be hard or impossible to do well. In addition, for
SMIL Boston to work with DOM Events, we would have to define a parallel set
of Event interfaces that add the time.  This would be a royal pain.

I know that DOM 2 is officially nearing PR, but this is a really serious
issue for SMIL, and scripters.  When I spoke to Philippe about this, he did
not know of a reason that this had been deliberately left out.  If there was
a reason, I would be interested to hear it, and to hear the proposed
work-around.

Regards,
Philippe.

[1] http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Member/w3c-dom-ig/2000Feb/0050.html
[2] http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Member/w3c-dom-ig/2000Feb/0011.html
[3] http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/www-dom/2000JanMar/0054.html (thread)
-- 
Philippe Le Hegaret - http://www.w3.org/People/LeHegaret/
World Wide Web Consortium (W3C), DOM Activity Lead

Received on Friday, 4 February 2000 17:09:25 UTC