Swfdec - Apr 2008 - Autoplay option

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 it
Bingo. 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
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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
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