[whatwg] Forcing orientation in content

[Kornel Lesiński]

On Sat, 13 Jul 2013 08:13:03 +0100, Tobie Langel <tobie.langel at gmail.com>  
wrote:

> It is not uncommon for mobile experiences to rely on the accelerometer  
> as an input mechanism, for example to control page scrolling (e.g.  
> Instapaper) or for gameplay.
>
> In such cases, auto-rotation of the viewport is completely disruptive to  
> the user's experience and needs to be inhibited.

Indeed, this ruins accelerometer-based games.

It's also slightly problematic in applications using compass (augumented  
reality or navigation apps pointing user towards a direction) -  
auto-rotation misfires when person rotates themselves while holding phone  
in front of them.


Inhibiting auto-rotation may be sufficient, and shouldn't be too annoying.  
Browsers might even have option to unlock rotation (e.g. Instapaper shows  
rotation lock switch when you shake the device).

I suspect that games designed for being locked in a particular screen  
orientation will be forcing users to rotate device to desired orientation  
first (e.g. I can imagine racing games to refuse to start the race until  
user rotates device to landscape) — but maybe that's a good thing?


Since specific, locked screen orientation is mostly needed in games, and  
forced rotation is disruptive to other things on the screen (e.g. moving  
buttons/addressbar to other physical edge of the screen), maybe it should  
be tied to the Fullscreen API?


     element.requestFullscreen({orientation:'landscape',  
autorotation:false})


-- 
regards, Kornel