Working on a new site with internal pages which would really work best if they automatically launched fullscreen. According to caniuse the fullscreen.api seems to be fairly well supported if still requiring a prefix or two. Anyone used it, got any recommendations/gotchas?

Particularly interested in thoughts on automatically opening fullscreen rather than requiring user intervention - though obviously with a button to close fullscreen mode if the user wanted to. The contents are still images not videos.

Thanks in advance.

Paul

This isn't a good idea because full screen automatically focuses the window, any open programs will appear below the browser and it's incredibly frustrating. In terms of UX I wouldn't go there, just stick to the defaults unless a user specifically opts-in.

48 minutes ago, DonkeyWorx said:

internal pages which would really work best if they automatically launched fullscreen.

Why? What happens on devices with smaller or larger screens? If I browse the site on my TV or a phone does it still work?

4 hours ago, Jack said:

...any open programs will appear below the browser and it's incredibly frustrating. In terms of UX I wouldn't go there, just stick to the defaults unless a user specifically opts-in.

Thanks, but can you clarify what you mean,  this isn't what appears to happen with YouTube fullscreen - it simply covers everything with the fullscreen video and when you exit fullscreen you revert to the original browser window. Or am I missing something?

There will be no need for UX in the fullscreen mode except to go back as it will require no user interaction - mere enjoyment and captivation 😊

3 hours ago, fisicx said:

Why? What happens on devices with smaller or larger screens? If I browse the site on my TV or a phone does it still work?

Thanks but yes,  it would obviously have to work on different size screens. I'd assumes that was what the fullscreen method achieves - or are you saying it doesn't?

The site itself is a simple responsive design but because of the nature of the content, users will want to enjoy specific pages as fullscreen and I'd like to assume that, rather than the require the interaction from the user when it will interrupt the process.

My understanding of the Full Screen API is that it only works during user interaction, so it cannot be used maliciously. As per:

https://stackoverflow.com/questions/19355370/how-to-open-a-web-page-automatically-in-full-screen-mode

Maybe some context would help us understand why you feel the website needs to go full screen, and why you think interaction will interrupt this process? Full screen has a very narrow usage, for example, as used by YouTube, when I watch a video I don't want to interact with my browser for a time. So, I temporarily hide that functionality, if I choose! Auto full screen on YouTube would be annoying - something to consider. For still images, I wouldn't imagine wanting to view them for longer than a couple of seconds before I continue to interact with the browser. For that interaction, I need access to the browser's features I do not want them hidden from me. When you add-in what could be considered intrusive interaction (full screen, audio etc.) always allow the user to opt-in, rather than opt-out. 

 

Many thanks, that answers it. Makes sense when you think about it.

The image is to accompany a meditation - hence the need to avoid other distractions if possible. I'll have to settle for user interaction, perhaps I can load the image and go to full screen when the user clicks to choose the image they want to use.

Thanks everyone for the guidance.