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[web-animations-1] "origin time" is not a very good name #2079
Description
See: https://drafts.csswg.org/web-animations-1/#document-timelines
It's too similar to time origin.
See: https://drafts.csswg.org/web-animations-1/#document-timelines
It's too similar to time origin.
Activity
[-][web-animations-1] Thing of a better name for than "origin time" for offset of a timeline from its time origin[/-][+][web-animations-1] Think of a better name for than "origin time" for offset of a timeline from its time origin[/+][-][web-animations-1] Think of a better name for than "origin time" for offset of a timeline from its time origin[/-][+][web-animations-1] "origin time" is not a very good name[/+]verbessern commentedon Aug 2, 2020
How about, "elapsed time"?
birtles commentedon Aug 10, 2020
I'm not sure about elapsed time. It's not necessarily the case that any time has elapsed--it's merely an offset that can be set to any value. Perhaps just "time offset"?
verbessern commentedon Aug 11, 2020
Elapsed time of zero is a valid elapsed time. The text in this paragraph is somehow unclear, I would assume that
current_time = now - timeline.start_time, that for me is exactly the elapsed time, as its always>= 0. Negative can't be, in a well designed system.birtles commentedon Aug 11, 2020
It's reasonable for the "origin time" to be negative so perhaps "time offset" fits that better.
verbessern commentedon Aug 12, 2020
It could be, but it sounds general, "origin offset time"?
verbessern commentedon Aug 12, 2020
Maybe "relative time"?
birtles commentedon Aug 12, 2020
Oh, I like origin offset. Thank you!
nigelmegitt commentedon Aug 18, 2020
In my experience from TTML, it is massively helpful to have terminology distinguish between spatial and temporal coordinate systems, because it is extremely easy to get confused between the two. It is typical in English language usage for temporal concepts to be described in spatial terms.
For that reason, I would advocate for example "origin offset time" to "origin offset".
However I would also note that in temporal coordinates, an offset is typically a duration whereas a time is typically a specific moment.
birtles commentedon Aug 11, 2026
@nigelmegitt Sorry for the massive delay here—I was just reading through the comments and was unclear about this sentence. Are you saying that "origin offset time" or better than "origin offset" because it makes it clear it's a temporal concept?
In any case, the IDL member for the
DocumentTimelineconstructor options hasoriginTimeand has already shipped in browsers so I think this ship has sailed, unfortunately. We could change the spec term but having the spec term deviate from the IDL term is probably going to cause more confusion that clarity.