[whatwg] video tag : loop for ever

[João Eiras]

Using a high number like 9999999999999 is, IMO, stupid.

You'd be forced to tell in the spec that playcount would have to be a
16, 32, 64, or X bit big integer, and if anything overflows the
boundaries imposed by the internal integer representation, then
playcount would have to be rounded to the highest possible boundary or
assume infinite looping.
Else, some browser will use a 64bit representation while its neighbour
will use a 32bit integer (common sense might find 64bit too big and
awkward) but then an authoring tool or author use
playcount="9999999999" (10 digits) and somehow the browser with 32bit
playcount integer breaks.

Do you feel like overspecifiying this? Or do you prefer to have just
either an integer, or a keyword in playcount=""? You've been doing the
later in CSS for years, and so far browser implementors and spec
writers have not complained.

Just my 2 cents.

On Wed, Oct 15, 2008 at 12:06 PM, Henri Sivonen <hsivonen at iki.fi> wrote:
> On Oct 15, 2008, at 03:40, Ian Hickson wrote:
>
>> There is no way to say "loop forever" right now primarily because doing so
>> would mean complicating the syntax of the playcount attribute to be not
>> just a number. You can work around it with script (just add
>> onended="currentTime=0" to the <video> element).
>>
>> To be honest I'm not really convinced we need the looping feature at all.
>> It seems like we should drop this from the current version. What benefit
>> does it bring? Is looping really that common? If we got rid of it we could
>> find better ways of picking the start time.
>
>
> One benefit of getting authors to use a declarative attribute instead of a
> script is that a declarative attribute is easier to greasemonkey away if the
> user seriously doesn't like looping.
>
> --
> Henri Sivonen
> hsivonen at iki.fi
> http://hsivonen.iki.fi/
>
>
>