[whatwg] autobuffer on "new Audio" objects

[David Wilson]

2009/7/19 Ian Hickson <ian at hixie.ch>:
> On Mon, 6 Jul 2009, Robert O'Callahan wrote:
>>
>> When script creates an audio element using the "new Audio" constructor,
>> the 'autobuffer' attribute should be automatically set on that element.
>> Presumably scripts will only create audio elements that they actually
>> intend to play.
>
> Done.
>

This seems like surprising behaviour (and a nasty asymmetry between
markup and JS): for the savings of a single line of code, creating a
new element will automatically result in (high bandwidth) network IO.
I don't think the intent of creating Audio instances clearly always
means playback will happen.

It's easy to see how some naively implemented JS audio widget could
fetch 200mb over an expensive 3G connection, simply by navigating to
some site in a background tab (say, by creating an array of elements
to represent their playlist - something I'd have thought was perfectly
valid behaviour).


David

>
> On Sun, 5 Jul 2009, Adam Shannon wrote:
>>
>> What about slower, public, or WIFI connections that can't support 5
>> people going to yahoo.com and having audio of interviews load?  Yahoo
>> would think that everyone would want to listen to at least the first
>> ~15-30 seconds.
>
> On Mon, 6 Jul 2009, Robert O'Callahan wrote:
>>
>> What about them? I'm not sure what your point is.
>>
>> I think we expect "new Audio" to be used for scripted playing of sounds,
>> not to create in-page audio elements.
>
> On Sun, 5 Jul 2009, Adam Shannon wrote:
>>
>> There already low bandwidth would be crippled more than it already is.
>> (By loading audio files.
>>
>> I would love support for in-page audio, it could be used for podcasts,
>> radio, interviews, ect...
>
> On Mon, 6 Jul 2009, Robert O'Callahan wrote:
>>
>> For in-page audio, put an <audio> element in the page.
>
> Robert is right; inline <audio> handles this fine, and is distinct from
> new Audio().
>
> --
> Ian Hickson               U+1047E                )\._.,--....,'``.    fL
> http://ln.hixie.ch/       U+263A                /,   _.. \   _\  ;`._ ,.
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>



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