It would be great if there was a property to configure the time slider to set the initial time extent to the end of the slider scale. This is required when a user wishes to see the current view of information, but may wish to see historical data at some point.
Also, is there a simple way to do this with the current api?
I've had to park my work on this temporarily. Originally I tried the first suggestion but that didn't work for me either. I'll give you're option a try. I'm actually embedding the time slider component into your TOC component. If you're interested i can post the amendment.