[mediacapture-screen-share] Add configuration to chose whether or not to focus/bring to front the shared window display surface (#138)

LukasKalbertodt has just created a new issue for https://github.com/w3c/mediacapture-screen-share:

== Add configuration to chose whether or not to focus/bring to front the shared window display surface ==
I wondered why the windows that I share via `getDisplayMedia` are suddenly in focus and in front of all other windows. This is done by Firefox and Chrome. I [asked on StackOverflow](https://stackoverflow.com/q/60172910/2408867) and got this as an answer:

> The rationale is the typical use case is someone presenting a document in a web conference call. In that context, the assumption is that since this is a user-initiated action (it requires a user gesture), the user intends to interact with the surface that they just shared.
>
> [...]
>
> If you have a compelling use case where this is problematic, consider describing it in a new issue on the specification.

So here I am. While I understand that this specification was developed with web conferences as important use case, I think the behavior of bringing the shared window to the front is not helpful in other situations. Let me motivate my use case:

I am developing a web application which allows users to very easily record their screen, camera and voice ([repository link](https://github.com/elan-ev/opencast-studio), in case you're interested). The application is targeted mostly at *technically-inexperienced* lecturers at universities and in other educational contexts. Our main goal is to make it *as easy as possible* to record lectures for your students. Due to COVID-19, lots of universities and lecturers got very interested in this and are now actively using it.

The web application works by first selecting your video input, then inspecting the preview to check if everything is correct, then selecting audio input, and only then to record. In this situation, the current behavior of bringing the shared windows to the front is very confusing to many users. Some users already suggested we add a big warning/notice in our application to explain to the users that the window will be focused and that they have to switch to the browser again. But this seems like a not-great workaround. 

**So my suggestion is**: let the web application decide whether or not the browser focuses the newly shared window.

I am not sure how this would fit into the API -- I am not particularly experienced with JS APIs. It seems like it could be a field in the `MediaStreamConstraints`. I don't think it makes sense as part of the `MediaTrackConstraints`, right?



Please view or discuss this issue at https://github.com/w3c/mediacapture-screen-share/issues/138 using your GitHub account

Received on Tuesday, 28 April 2020 11:22:05 UTC