Hello! I don't like the recent change to the plugin that makes some flash files to play automatically. I know that GUI design is not my thing, but let me explain what I don't like: 1) It's not obvious to the user that the "play" toggle is persistent. Media players don't change their behavior just because the user presses the "play" button. 2) No user who didn't read the changelog or found swfdec-mozilla.conf would even suspect that the setting is per host. It looks like some sites work with autoplay, and some don't. The "play" button doesn't show what it does. It doesn't show the host name. The host of the flash file may be different from the main page. 3) The "global" setting is a joke, as the play button overrides it. It's impossible to disable or enable autoplay for _all_ sites. And that was actually the most important advantage of swfdec over the Adobe plugin - the knowledge that no flash would play until I run it. Likewise, full autoplay of the Adobe plugin cannot be emulated. 4) Users have to be careful to stop the plugin if they don't want flash from that site to autoplay the next time. 5) The autoplay setting is saved before the plugin exits. This means that it the browser becomes unresponsive and has to be killed, the same flash file will autoplay next time. I'd rather see the "true" setting saved only if the plugin stops handling the flash file and there have been no errors. -- Regards, Pavel Roskin
2008/4/25, Pavel Roskin <proski at gnu.org>:> I don't like the recent change to the plugin that makes some flash files > to play automatically. I know that GUI design is not my thing, but let > me explain what I don't like:I totally agree.> the most important advantage of swfdec over the Adobe > plugin - the knowledge that no flash would play until I run itBingo. I loved swfdec for that. -- Rafa? Mi?ecki
On Fri, Apr 25, 2008 at 12:17 AM, Pavel Roskin <proski at gnu.org> wrote:> I don't like the recent change to the plugin that makes some flash files > to play automatically. I know that GUI design is not my thing, but let > me explain what I don't like: >Yeah, the current state is an experiment where we are not sure how it'll play out. I do like it a lot or the few Flash files Im using, but I'm just another data point. We've been trying to come up with a solution that fits everyone, but it seems so far we haven't been successful. I think the features we want are pretty simple: - Autoplay should play the files I want to see playing, but not those I don't want. - Autoplay should be easy to get right. It should require as little configuration as possible. That's about it. Of course, this is pretty broad without specific user scenarios. So we should try to come up with some scenarios. I'll list the one I know about, and you can reply with the ones missed. Afterwards we will try to figure out the best setting that works for all or most of them. Here we go: Benjamin is a user without a lot of clue about Flash. He just knows two things: He visits sites such as Youtube and Google Video and the video player on these sites should autoplay. However there's also annoying ads on other sites. Those ads should not annoy him. He's also quite stupid. This means he usually doesn't figure out how to set up properties. He also doesn't remember if he has set up settings before.> 5) The autoplay setting is saved before the plugin exits. This means > that it the browser becomes unresponsive and has to be killed, the same > flash file will autoplay next time. I'd rather see the "true" setting > saved only if the plugin stops handling the flash file and there have > been no errors. >Yeah, that's indeed a good idea. We should change that. Cheers, Benjamin
On Thu, 24 Apr 2008 18:17:35 -0400 Pavel Roskin <proski at gnu.org> wrote:> Hello!Hi,> I don't like the recent change to the plugin that makes some flash > files to play automatically. I know that GUI design is not my thing, > but let me explain what I don't like: > > 1) It's not obvious to the user that the "play" toggle is persistent. > Media players don't change their behavior just because the user > presses the "play" button. > > 2) No user who didn't read the changelog or found swfdec-mozilla.conf > would even suspect that the setting is per host. It looks like some > sites work with autoplay, and some don't. The "play" button doesn't > show what it does. It doesn't show the host name. The host of the > flash file may be different from the main page. > > 3) The "global" setting is a joke, as the play button overrides it. > It's impossible to disable or enable autoplay for _all_ sites. And > that was actually the most important advantage of swfdec over the > Adobe plugin - the knowledge that no flash would play until I run it. > Likewise, full autoplay of the Adobe plugin cannot be emulated. > > 4) Users have to be careful to stop the plugin if they don't want > flash from that site to autoplay the next time. > > 5) The autoplay setting is saved before the plugin exits. This means > that it the browser becomes unresponsive and has to be killed, the > same flash file will autoplay next time. I'd rather see the "true" > setting saved only if the plugin stops handling the flash file and > there have been no errors.Attached a patch against swfdec-mozilla git that should address at least 1 and 4. 2 could be implement on top of this displaying the hostname in the plugin menu. 3 the same way adding a new entry 'Play everything automatically' but i don't think is a good idea ATM. Could you try it and see if works for you? HTH, riccardo -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: swfdec-mozilla-autoplay-revisited.diff Type: text/x-diff Size: 3821 bytes Desc: not available Url : http://lists.freedesktop.org/archives/swfdec/attachments/20080426/25c2d732/attachment.diff
Hi, I read the call from Benjamin Otte regarding scenario and autoplay. So even if I'm not a developper, I think I can share my thought and try to be constructive. I'm a user which like to control the way he browses the web, so before swfdec, I used the flashblock extension for firefox/seamonkey (http://flashblock.mozdev.org/). I'm using a git version of swfdec so I can be considered like a relatively technical user. Regarding autoplay, my wishes would be : - disabled by default - possibility to enable it for an animation, a webpage, a site, a domain - the above option accessible easily, maybe directly on right click (I've made a picture as attachment to better explain my thought) - possibility to enable it for everything in preferences In fact it's mostly like I manage javascript with noscript extension. regards and thanks for your work. Mjules -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: swfdec-autoplay.png Type: image/png Size: 15630 bytes Desc: not available Url : http://lists.freedesktop.org/archives/swfdec/attachments/20080429/55d1f0cf/attachment.png