[whatwg] <source> media attribute behavior, static or dynamic ?

Ian Hickson ian at hixie.ch
Thu May 10 14:19:38 PDT 2012


On Thu, 10 May 2012, Paul Adenot wrote:
>
> The spec [1] says :
> 
> > Dynamically modifying a source element and its attribute when the
> > element is already inserted in a video or audio element will have no
> > effect. To change what is playing, just use the src attribute on the
> > media element directly, possibly making use of the canPlayType()
> > method to pick from amongst available resources. Generally,
> > manipulating source elements manually after the document has been
> > parsed is an unncessarily complicated approach.
> 
> which seems to indicate that the <source> element are only used at load 
> time. Since |canPlayType()| is mentioned, |matchMedia()| is possibly the 
> right approach here, but it is unclear to us what the spec exactly 
> requires. We think the spec needs clarification here.

As far as I can tell, the behaviour here is strictly and unambiguously 
defined, leaving only one possible interpretation, so it's not clear to me 
how to make it less ambiguous. Could you elaborate on what interpretations 
of the spec you think are possible?

-- 
Ian Hickson               U+1047E                )\._.,--....,'``.    fL
http://ln.hixie.ch/       U+263A                /,   _.. \   _\  ;`._ ,.
Things that are impossible just take longer.   `._.-(,_..'--(,_..'`-.;.'



More information about the whatwg mailing list