On Oct 3, 2008, at 11:15 AM, Geoffrey Garen wrote:
Hi Chris.
I really like the idea of a Timer object. It would allow you to
separate creation from starting, allows you to pause and add other
API's to the interface. Can the constructor be used to simplify the
creation:
var t = new Timer(0, false, function() { ...});
which would start the timer immediately, as in your example.
I think Maciej has made a convincing case that "new Timer" is a bit
too coy about the fact that the timer is actually starting.
Or you could do:
var t = new Timer(function() { ... });
...
t.startOneShot(1.76);
I like your suggestion of adding "startOneShot" (and
"startRepeating"?) to the API. I think it would improve clarity over
a bool parameter specifying whether the timer repeats.
To create a Timer that isn't scheduled to fire:
new Timer(...)
To create a Timer that is scheduled to fire:
new Timer(...).startOneShot(...)
new Timer(...).startRepeating(...)
It would be pretty unusual for a method like startOneShot or
startRepeating to return a value. I'm not sure if you indended that;
if not
Or, if we don't like constructors:
createTimer(...).startOneShot(...)
createTimer(...).startRepeating(...)
We could rename the restart() method to start() (with the same
semantics, or also taking a bool) and have both createTimer() and
startTimer() if we think this use case is very important. I don't
think the need for unstarted timers is very high. However, here's yet
another tricksy way to achieve the same thing:
var tSpec = [0, false, function() {...});
...
var t = startTimer.apply(window, tSpec);
I think setting up a Timer with the intent of not only starting it but
defining the timing parameters is extra useless, since then all it
represents is a function.
Regards,
Maciej
And you could easily add animation or media API's for
synchronization:
var t = new Timer(1.76, function() { ... }); // when the timer is
triggered, it will run for 1.76 seconds
var transition = window.getTransitionForElement(element, "left");
transition.trigger(t);
...
element.style.left = "100px";
This would cause the timer to start when the left transition starts
and fire its event 1.76 seconds later.
This would be really cool!
Geoff
