[Paraview] Customize time values displayed in time annotation [take 2]

[Giordano Lipari]

Hi all! I am reposting this after several days since I fear that the
first take was swamped in a dense digest. Hope this is OK.

I work with Paraview 4.3.1. I use an existing state file (*.pvsm) as a
template to create a new animation (with four panels combined).

The names of the legacy vtk files that I am loading as frames, are
tailed by a progressive file counter (such as *.0001.vtk, *.0002.vtk and
so forth). At this stage I am not able/inclined to change this situation.

The time annotation in the animation shows the 0-based file counter,
whereas I would like to show the time values out of a given sequence.

I then thought that editing the property field "TimestepValues" in the
state file from
      <Property name="TimestepValues" id="4553.TimestepValues"
number_of_elements="6">
        <Element index="0" value="0"/>
        <Element index="1" value="1"/>
        <Element index="2" value="2"/>
        <Element index="3" value="3"/>
        <Element index="4" value="4"/>
        <Element index="5" value="5"/>
      </Property>
into, for example,
      <Property name="TimestepValues" id="4555.TimestepValues"
number_of_elements="6">
        <Element index="0" value="0"/>
        <Element index="1" value="0.6"/>
        <Element index="2" value="1.25"/>
        <Element index="3" value="1.85"/>
        <Element index="4" value="2.5"/>
        <Element index="5" value="3.1"/>
      </Property>
would have worked well. (I repeat this for all occurrences of
TimestepValues owing to the four-panel arrangement.)

However, this is not sufficient. The new values are ignored and even
overwritten when I save the modified state file.

--1--
Is there any other feature in the pvsm file that I should tweak to make
this substitution effective?
--2--
Or is this idea ill-fated from the outset?
--3--
If 2==true is the case, is there any recommended way such that the time
annotation marks a user-defined sequence of values?

Thanks for thinking along and helping me out with tips and wisdom.

Giordano