[whatwg] <video>

[Gregory Maxwell]

On Sun, Jun 20, 2010 at 9:17 PM, Ashley Sheridan
<ash at ashleysheridan.co.uk> wrote:
> On Sun, 2010-06-20 at 21:06 -0400, Gregory Maxwell wrote:
> On Sun, Jun 20, 2010 at 8:23 PM, Nils Dagsson Moskopp
> <nils-dagsson-moskopp at dieweltistgarnichtso.net> wrote:
> > AFAIK, at least Firefox shows a fullscreen option already in the context
> > menu. What makes you think there is another attribute needed (besides
> > @controls) ?
>
> So... an interesting bit of fun comes up when you use layout tricks to
> prevent the context menu in order to make save as impossible, and you
> eliminate the full screen option as an unwanted side effect.
>
> There is also the issue of the context menu not being an especially
> intuitive or discoverable way of activating it, especially if all the
> rest of the controls are buttons below the video.
>
> I think the context menu is a sensible place to find a fullscreen option short of a button existing as part of the video controls.

Short of. Yes.  But I think that the gap between the two is pretty big
from a usability perspective (though I have no data to back this up)

> Also, if someone is daft enough to think that disabling the context menu will prevent people from saving their clips, then they deserve the pain of not being able to make the video play full-screen :p


I can agree that it's usually a bad move... and people who do it to
prevent saving belong in the same circle of hell as the people that
send HTML mail to mailing lists (ahem :) ),  but I think you're
incorrect to assume that it's always a daft move.

For example, what if you have a video available in multiple qualities
and you believe it would be beneficial for the viewers of your site to
be corralled into your official download page where they can get the
most appropriate file, rather than getting the 'thumbnail' that comes
out of the save as?   ... if the save as works, many people are going
to use it without even bothering to look at the superior download
link. Or you might want to direct the user to a lower quality/cost
distribution service which isn't suitable for streaming but works as
well for non-realtime use.

Even if your interest is in preventing downloads— simply slowing down
most people most of the time may adequately address your need, and
overlaying a transparent div to hide access to the controls is a
perfectly workable way of doing that.

In any case, I think the motivations of context-menu-prohibitions are
mostly off topic here.  The simple usability issue is enough to
justify doing something, if something can actually be done.