[whatwg] Feature Request: Media Elements as Targets for Links

[Tab Atkins Jr.]

On Mon, Dec 17, 2012 at 4:37 PM, Ian Hickson <ian at hixie.ch> wrote:
> On Sat, 24 Nov 2012, Nils Dagsson Moskopp wrote:
>> Use Case Description:
>>
>>   Linking to specific fragments of media is possible via media fragment
>>   URIs [1]. However, it is not possible to apply a link to embedded
>>   media declaratively, for example to link to a specific point in time
>>   for a media element on a page.
>>
>>   [1] <http://www.w3.org/TR/media-frags/>
>
> Basically, you're saying you have a Web page with a single "major" <video>
> or <audio> element in it, e.g. the YouTube watch page, and you want to be
> able to link to that page with a fragment identifier that causes the video
> to start playing at a particular time, without any scripts involved?
>
> Or is this just an internal-to-the-page thing? As in, you want to be able
> to, from within a page, cause a media element to seek to a specific time,
> in response to user interaction, without script?
>
> Or is relying on scripting ok?

Both of these are useful.  The first is Youtube's behavior today
(implemented with JS parsing the hash for something that looks like a
time media fragment), which is obviously useful.

The second is great for adding "section" or "bookmark" links - the
use-case is obviously the same as using hash-links to target sections
in a normal HTML page.

Scripting is about as acceptable as using <a data-target="foo"
onclick="document.getElementByID(this.dataset.target).scrollIntoView()">...</a>
is for implementing hash-links.

~TJ