timeweb

timeweb is a JavaScript library that overwrites native time handling in a web page, creating a virtual timeline independent of real time.

# Scope

timeweb overwrites these time-related features in web pages:

• performance.now(), Date.now(), new Date(), and Date()
• requestAnimationFrame() and cancelAnimationFrame()
• setTimeout(), setInterval(), clearTimeout(), and clearInterval()
• CSS Transitions and Animations
• SVG Animations
• Videos
• element.animate()
• new CustomEvent().timeStamp

# timeweb Limitations

These time-related features are known not to work:

• iframes with time-related content
• event.timeStamp
• Audio analyser nodes

Additionally timeweb is limited by what can be overwritten in browser by JavaScript and not everything may work as intended. Please file an issue if you think something should work.

Read Me Contents

• Use
• How it works

# Script Use

• Copy dist/timeweb.js to the desired directory.
• Include it before any time-handling JavaScript in the HTML file: <script src="path/to/timeweb.js"></script>
• Use timeweb.goTo to go to a virtual time, in milliseconds. For instance, timeweb.goTo(5000); goes to 5 seconds on the virtual time line. It can only go forward. Note that currently requestAnimationFrame is called once per timeweb.goTo regardless of the previous virtual time.

# How it works

For JavaScript functions, timeweb overwrites a page's native time-handling functions and objects (new Date(), Date.now, performance.now, requestAnimationFrame, setTimeout, setInterval, cancelAnimationFrame, clearTimeout, and clearInterval) to custom ones that use a virtual timeline, which can be stepped through programmatically.

For videos/SVGs, timeweb detects when video and svg elements are created or added to the page by using a mutation observer and overwriting document.createElement. It pauses those elements and seeks when needed.

For animations available through the Web Animations API(CSS Transitions, CSS Animations, and element.animate()), timeweb detects new animations through transitionstart, animationrun listeners, document.getAnimations, and overwriting Element.prototype.animate. It pauses the animations and seeks when needed.

This work was inspired by a talk by Noah Veltman, who described altering a document's Date.now and performance.now functions to refer to a virtual time and using puppeteer to change that virtual time and take snapshots.