Re: Defining safe areas for media devices and set top boxes

On Tuesday 07 December 2010 15:29:24 you wrote:
> 
> On Dec 7, 2010, at 9:23 , Joćo Eiras wrote:
> >>> Not enough at all. Content (significant or not) can very well reach the edges of screen, as in any other user agent.
> >> 
> >> So, to be clear, you want to be able to paint anything, not just background, in the unsafe area?  Why, if it's unsafe?
> >> 
> > 
> > Because a background image is not enough, because web app UIs are dynamic and content can shift around, say, when drag and dropping, because something as simple as a header and a footer can very well snap to the edges, because if there is more than one page of text, it overflows the viewport downwards, and so on. Not hard to imagine why,
> > 
> > The unsafe area is not a no mans land, just a area of the viewport which *might* not be rendered, so by default, the main content should avoid it.
> 
> So if the main (foreground) content should avoid it, why not define that the foreground area is the safe area, and the background paints into the unsafe area?
> 
> Overflowing the viewport downwards into the unsafe area means it may not be readable.  E.g. the UA displays text lines 1-30, but only 1-27 are readable.  The user does page-down, and the UA shows lines 31-60.  The user never read 28-30, which is bad.
> 
> It doesn't help the user if he can drag things around in an area where he can't see what he's doing, either.  A footer that snaps off-screen into the bottom of the unsafe area and becomes invisible doesn't seem very helpful.
> 
> So I am having a hard time understanding what you're wanting, so far.
> 

Indeed I'm having a bit of difficulties expressing my ideas.

First, there might be a background, if there is, whether it can be stretched, translated, or repeated is not something for the user agent to guess.

When I mention content which might land in the safe area, I'm not specifically talking only about readable text, but elements in the document tree, in order to maintain document aesthetics, instead of showing some void stripes on the sides, again, like a header or a footer.

If a unsafe-area media was detected, then the header and footer could be stretched a bit in order to maintin the same aesthetics.

Playing video fullscreen would require stretching over the safe area to eliminate the content edges (there might be black stripes underneath, but that's another issue), and because video can be partially cropped practically always, as it is on regular TVs

if you have a UI which  allows drag and drop you can move stuff near and over the edges, like in a regular computer (who'd know?).

I could be detailing the work I'm doing, but I'm obviously not allowed.

So, it's not about hiding stuff in the safe area, but allowing some elements in the page to overlap it.

Expecting for user agents to magically apply some padding to the document, is exactly what is not wanted while not being straightforward, and painting the background is not an expected solution. Would actually be quite a cludge.

Received on Tuesday, 7 December 2010 16:00:37 UTC