Why is fullscreen API disabled by default?

[Lemon Juice]

I'm wondering why full-screen-api.enabled is false by default in SM? From my experience if it's false then there are problems with some sites:

- some sites enter fullscreen mode for slide shows and having slide shows in smaller browser windows is not really a good experience
- can't play html5 youtube videos in fullscreen
- on vimeo.com when I disable flash plugin the videos are played using html5. However, when fullscreen api is disabled I am greeted with a strange warning:

What’s going on here?

Some of your technology may be out of date, and this video may not play properly.

Try Anyway

Example: http://vimeo.com/45917260

When I press "Try Anyway" the video is played in a dumbed-down player in a very low quality.

Considering the above, why would anyone want to have fullscreen api turned off if it only results in problems (not counting a handful of power users having their own strange reasons to do so)? I know this api is not complete in SM and still there is the narrow navigation and location bar visible but at least it works and I think it's much better than to have it disabled.

I'm thinking about filing a bug to change the default to true - would this make sense? In my opinion SM is not user-friendly in this respect if people have to hunt for some hidden preference just to make some site work well.

[therube]

When I toggle the Pref (to true), I get:

Ouch!

This video cannot be played with your current setup.

?
Oh, & no playback at all.
(And now I can't even get it to play in Flash either? Must be something on my end...?)

[therube]

Looks like NoScript is affecting things in some manner.
Vimeo - Cannot Play HTML5 with vimeo.com Allowed

[therube]

I'm thinking about filing a bug to change the default to true

Go for it.
Others have mentioned (lack of) full screen playback as an issue (at times in Flash & also in) HTML5 & I've suggested toggling the Pref.

[patrickjdempsey]

Personally, I miss the days before Fullscreen API came out because back then fullscreen on sites JUST WORKED. And Firefox's implementation is terrible... I don't want to be asked or bothered about it all the time every time. I want it to JUST WORK, like it did in the past.

[patrickjdempsey]

And for what it's worth, the only site I can't view "full screen" on is Facebook. I have absolutely no problem with Vimeo or any other video site because they are all using Flash which doesn't care about the API. More than likely the Firefox devs bundled HTML5 video implementation to obey the Fullscreen API mess. Just another example of how HTML5 video has been completely bungled IMO. I'd much rather use Flash, because at least I know it works.

[Lemon Juice]

Here is the bug report:

Set full-screen-api.enabled to true by default

This is a pretty simple change that could be done now to improve the current state of things since I don't know why anyone would want to have the full screen API turned off in SM. Better have the top location bar visible in full screen mode than having no full screen at all.

[patrickjdempsey]

If they can rip out the stupid "allow full screen" warnings every time then I'd be happy to have it on. But anyways, the only site I notice that doesn't work with it off is Facebook. Other sites still use Flash's fullscreen mode which doesn't use the API anyway.

[Lemon Juice]

If they can rip out the stupid "allow full screen" warnings every time then I'd be happy to have it on.

But we don't have these warnings in SM (yet), as far as I know they are in Firefox only. When you turn on full-screen-api.enabled then there will be an almost full screen mode with the location bar and tab bar and no stupid warnings. I've created this bug only to allow this to be on by default since I think it is better than no full screen at all.

But anyways, the only site I notice that doesn't work with it off is Facebook.

How does it not work in Facebook (I don't use Facebook...)? Do videos play but full screen cannot be turned on? Just like youtube when Flash is disabled?

[patrickjdempsey]

Good to know about the warning. IMO it's excessive in Firefox. We should be able to decide to disable the warning globally if we are big boys.

The only thing that's broken on FB is full screen images. Videos use Flash so they work as expected. Trying to go into fullscreen on an image in Facebook throws this warning in Error Console:

Warning: Request for full-screen was denied because full-screen API is disabled by user preference.
Source File: https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=.....
Line: 0

By the way, prior to the HTML FullScreen API, Facebook just used Flash for their image player and Fullscreen worked just fine there as well. I don't think I've encountered the API in use anywhere else on the internet, but I don't use a lot of popular services.

[Lemon Juice]

Good to know about the warning. IMO it's excessive in Firefox. We should be able to decide to disable the warning globally if we are big boys.

I also think it's excessive and annoying in Fx. The way Flash did it, by displaying a short message "press ESC to exit full screen mode", is quite right and simple IMO. But anyway, despite the fullscreen API specs (I haven't studied them really...) I think it's quite possible for SM not to implement those "annoying" parts of the specs if only the developers do it so - but then they cannot just copy&paste the whole stuff from Fx.

The only thing that's broken on FB is full screen images. Videos use Flash so they work as expected. Trying to go into fullscreen on an image in Facebook throws this warning in Error Console:

So does this mean trying to view full screen images in FB simply doesn't work? The images don't show even in non-full screen mode?

And when you turn on full-screen-api.enabled can you view images in FB?

[patrickjdempsey]

In FB images are shown in a viewer and they display fine normally. If you try to click the fullscreen icon beside the image in SM, nothing happens. With FullScreen API enabled in Firefox, if you click the fullscreen icon beside the image you get the nag popup question and then you get to see the images in fullscreen. Prior to the FullScreen implementation, if you clicked the fullscreen icon on FB images, they went fullscreen immediately... using Flash fullscreen mode as I said: no nag popup questions, no warning, just exactly the behavior you expected. I understand that under some circumstances, FullScreen API could possibly be used as an attack vector, but the fact is that the nag popup stuff doesn't prevent that situation, it just makes the 99% of the time it doesn't happen extremely annoying.

[Lemon Juice]

If you try to click the fullscreen icon beside the image in SM, nothing happens. With FullScreen API enabled in Firefox, if you click the fullscreen icon beside the image you get the nag popup question and then you get to see the images in fullscreen.

Okay, but I was most interested not in Firefox but in how SeaMonkey behaves on FB with full screen API enabled

Prior to the FullScreen implementation, if you clicked the fullscreen icon on FB images, they went fullscreen immediately... using Flash fullscreen mode as I said: no nag popup questions, no warning, just exactly the behavior you expected. I understand that under some circumstances, FullScreen API could possibly be used as an attack vector, but the fact is that the nag popup stuff doesn't prevent that situation, it just makes the 99% of the time it doesn't happen extremely annoying.

As far as I am concerned I'm all for porting/implementing the whole full screen API in SM but with the nags turned off, or at least optional. Some time ago I saw an example of a site that used the full screen API to forge a site by drawing fake browser controls. But let's not be paranoid, how often would that happen? If someone doesn't know much about the internet it is easy to fool them anyway...

Anyway, since I wanted to have some decent working full screen in SeaMonkey I wrote a small extension that does that:

True Full Screen in SeaMonkey

What it does is it enables full screen API first and then whenever the browser is switched to full screen it hides the top toolbars so that we get true full screen with no distractions. Additionally, it will pop out the toolbars when the mouse is moved to the top of the screen. And it works for me well on html5 video on youtube, vimeo and dailymotion and on a sample html slide show - with no nags, of course! . You can try it out in FB, theoretically it should work there, too.

[raj_bhaskar]

Anyway, since I wanted to have some decent working full screen in SeaMonkey I wrote a small extension that does that:

Excellent, I've just installed it and it works great for YouTube. One request: could you possibly also close the sidebar if it's open when switching to fullscreen mode as well (ideally re-opening it when you leave FS mode)?

[Lemon Juice]

Okay, try again, sidebar now closes when going full screen.