RE: [media] adding autoplay requirements to requirements doc

Well in a real standards process Notes aren’t considered normative. However I take the point.

I was trying to re-do the wording so that user agents are required to not implement autoplay, unless they provide 
some setting which allows the user to explicitly opt in and allow it. That allows authors to rely on the autoplay mechanism and not fail WCAG.

-----Original Message-----
From: public-html-a11y-request@w3.org [mailto:public-html-a11y-request@w3.org] On Behalf Of Philip Jägenstedt
Sent: 20 April 2011 19:12
To: public-html-a11y@w3.org
Subject: Re: [media] adding autoplay requirements to requirements doc

On Wed, 20 Apr 2011 19:10:41 +0200, Sean Hayes <Sean.Hayes@microsoft.com>  
wrote:

> That all makes a certain amount of sense; it would carry a little more  
> weight if there were some language in the spec to the effect that  
> autoplay is a request that the user agent can deny. For example,
> Rather than defining autoplay as:
> " When present, the user agent (as described in the algorithm described  
> herein) will automatically begin playback of the media resource as soon  
> as it can do so without stopping "
> Instead define it along the lines of:
> " When present, the user agent (as described in the algorithm described  
> herein) will; unless a user agent setting has been set indicating that  
> immediate playback is allowed, move the media into a potentially playing  
> but blocked state:  
> http://www.whatwg.org/specs/web-apps/current-work/complete/video.html#blocked-media-element  
> which is waiting for user interaction   
> http://www.whatwg.org/specs/web-apps/current-work/complete/video.html#paused-for-user-interaction  
> "

The spec already says:

"Note: User agents do not need to support autoplay, and it is suggested  
that user agents honor user preferences on the matter. Authors are urged  
to use the autoplay attribute rather than using script to force the video  
to play, so as to allow the user to override the behavior if so desired."

That's all that's needed to simply ignore autoplay, which is what Opera  
has a setting for.

Of course, to say that waiting for a asynchronous permission to play  
(whether via autoplay or scripts) is one kind of user interaction that  
causes the media element to be blocked wouldn't hurt.

-- 
Philip Jägenstedt
Core Developer
Opera Software

Received on Wednesday, 20 April 2011 19:22:14 UTC