[Discussion] Shouldn't `seek` be renamed to `currentTime`? about react-native-video

[brentvatne]

@bparadie - @johanneslumpe and I thought about this, the main issue is that because we can't really make this a "controlled" component in the React sense - we can't have the value passed in to current time always be kept in sync with the actual time - it made more sense for us to break out of the React model and seek imperatively here. Thoughts?

[bparadie]

@brentvatne Just checking whether I got your point: currentTime cannot be safely kept in sync w/t AVPlayerItem.currentTime and that's why you suggest using a different name i.e. seek.

Here is my take:
I did notice that the currentTime setter (JS to native) works as I would expect it to work with HTMLVideoElement. Now, the currentTime getter is a different story. I don't have a good solution for getting the currentTime other than recording the current time via incoming progress events.

Or is there a way to retrieve property values directly through the bridge?
If so then this method added to RCTVideo.m should make everything work, correct?

- (float)getCurrentTime
{
  return _playerItem != NULL ? CMTimeGetSeconds(_playerItem.currentTime) : 0;
}

But even with currentTime setter working and getter not working I would prefer currentTime, because it's in line with the HTMLVideoElement spec.

BTW, similar arguments apply to repeat versus loop (http://www.w3schools.com/tags/att_video_loop.asp).

[johanneslumpe]

@bparadie The bridge is 100% async, in order to retrieve a value you will have to provide a callback which can be called with the new value.

[bparadie]

@johanneslumpe Yeah, that's what I thought. You'd probably have to observe a custom event and then somehow call the video player and wait for the result. Now, how would this all work with multiple video players on the page? The notification system is kind of global from what I can tell. That means each video player instance would probably need a UID, otherwise you wouldn't know which video player's currentTime was the right one.

It would be great if react-native did some magic in the background and provide an easy way for retrieving property values. I am okay with async. I remember vaguely that video.js, or Brightcove has a similar problem with currentTime in Flash Player environments. Because the Flash/JS bridge is async you have to pass a callback function to getCurrentTime.

[arilitan]

Wanted to re-open the discussion here if needed. We are trying to clean up open issues in this repo, so if no further comments in the next couple weeks it will be closed.