Add Explainer.

bradtriebwasser · Oct 19, 2022 · a46dd4f · michaelwasserman · Oct 25, 2022 · michaelwasserman
1 parent d5c8320
commit a46dd4f
Showing 1 changed file with 132 additions and 0 deletions.
diff --git a/EXPLAINER.md b/EXPLAINER.md
@@ -0,0 +1,132 @@
+# Multi-Screen Window Placement on the Web - Creating Fullscreen Popup Windows
+
+## Introduction
+
+This proposal introduces an additional way for web applications to initiate fullscreen experiences on multi-display configurations. The proposed enhancement would allow web applications to open a new window directly into fullscreen on a specified display with a single API call using the existing [window.open()](https://html.spec.whatwg.org/multipage/window-object.html#dom-open-dev) API.
+
+## Background
+
+[Multi-Screen Window Placement](https://github.com/webscreens/window-placement)
+is a new permission-gated web platform API that provides web applications with
+information about the device's connected screens, allows them to open and
+position windows or request fullscreen on any of those screens.
+
+The HTML living standard specifies
+[Tracking User Activation](https://html.spec.whatwg.org/multipage/interaction.html#tracking-user-activation),
+to gate some web platform APIs on user interaction signals. The transient user
+activation signal (e.g. from a mouse click) is required and consumed when web
+application scripts open a popup window via `Window.open()`, and when they request
+fullscreen via `Element.requestFullscreen()`.
+
+## Problem
+
+Web applications are limited in the ways that they can [Initiate Multi-Screen Experiences](https://github.com/w3c/window-placement/blob/main/EXPLAINER_initiating_multi_screen_experiences.md) across multi-display configurations. Specifically, opening a popup and transitioning the window to fullscreen requires two separate [user activations](https://html.spec.whatwg.org/multipage/interaction.html#tracking-user-activation), consumed by `window.open()` and `Element.requestFullscreen()` respectively. This results in a cumbersome user experience for web applications which utilize multiple displays.
+
+Multiple partners/early adopters of the API have specifically requested this enhancement (e.g. [window.open should support the 'fullscreen' option](https://github.com/w3c/window-placement/issues/7)) and it's considered a prerequisite to at least one other feature request (e.g. [Feature request: Fullscreen support on multiple screens](https://github.com/w3c/window-placement/issues/92))
+
+
+## Use Cases
+
+Some basic illustrative examples which may be achieved with this proposal are listed below:
+
+* Video streaming app launches a video directly to fullscreen on a secondary display.
+* 3D modelling app allows user to launch a preview in fullscreen on a secondary display.
+
+Web applications may use this enhancement in conjunction with the existing [ability to enter fullscreen and open a popup from a single user gesture](https://w3c.github.io/window-placement/#usage-overview-initiate-multi-screen-experiences). By doing so, web applications can launch fullscreen experiences on the initial / primary display and a secondary display from a single user gesture. Some examples are listed below:
+
+* Financial app opens a fullscreen dashboard on the primary monitor and a fullscreen stock tracker window on a secondary display.
+* Gaming app launches a fullscreen window on both primary and secondary displays for a continuous widescreen view.
+* Virtual desktop app launches fullscreen windows on primary and secondary displays to mimic a remote monitor configuration.
+
+
+## Goals
+
+The goal of this document is to outline the necessary spec changes that would permit web applications to open a fullscreen window on a secondary display. It also aims to explore abuse and other security / privacy considerations. Some specific goals are as follows:
+
+* Extend the `Window.open()` algorithm to change the behavior of the opened window based on parameters passed.
+* Explore the behavior of user agents when the launched window exits fullscreen.
+
+The [Initiating Multi-Screen Experiences Explainer](https://github.com/w3c/window-placement/blob/main/EXPLAINER_initiating_multi_screen_experiences.md) covers some related goals (i.e. launching N fullscreen windows on N displays) not covered in this proposal. 
+
+## Proposal
+
+Allow sites with the `window-placement` permission to open a fullscreen window on a secondary display from a single user gesture. When the device has multiple screens and `Window.open()` targets the secondary screen with an appropriate flag to create the window as fullscreen (via the `features` argument), the user agent should open the window as fullscreen on the display which contains the coordinates (`left`, `top`, `width`, `height`) of the new window. When the new window ultimately exits fullscreen, the window shall be restored as a popup style (bordered) window matching the coordinates originally passed to `Window.open()`.
+
+
+### Example Code
+
+```js
+ const otherScreen = screenDetails.screens.find(s => s !== primaryScreen);
+  window.open(url, '_blank', `left=${otherScreen.availLeft},` +
+                             `top=${otherScreen.availTop},` +
+                             `width=${otherScreen.availWidth},` +
+                             `height=${otherScreen.availHeight},` + 
+                             `fullscreen=true`);
+```
+
+### Spec Changes
+
+The spec does not contain an exhaustive list of valid features in the `features` argument, however, the spec does contain procedures for determining if a [popup window is requested](https://html.spec.whatwg.org/multipage/window-object.html#popup-window-is-requested), and the specific `tokenizedFeatures` to look for. Following this model, the spec shall be updated to define a similar algorithm for checking if a **fullscreen window** is requested. A fullscreen window must also first be considered a popup window and also have `left` and `top` set in `features`. `left` and `top` determine which display the window will go fullscreen on, and the position of the popup when fullscreen is exited.
+
+After [checking if a popup window is requested](https://html.spec.whatwg.org/multipage/window-object.html#popup-window-is-requested), add the following section:
+
+To **check if a fullscreen window is requested**, given *tokenizedFeatures*:
+
+
+1. If *tokenizedFeatures* is empty, then return false. 
+2. Let *popup* be the result of [checking if a popup window is requested](https://html.spec.whatwg.org/multipage/window-object.html#popup-window-is-requested).
+3. If *popup* is false, then return false.
+4. If *tokenizedFeatures*["`left`"] and *tokenizedFeatures*["`top`"] do not [exist](https://infra.spec.whatwg.org/#map-exists), then return false.
+7. Let *fullscreen* be the result of [checking if a window feature is set](https://html.spec.whatwg.org/multipage/window-object.html#window-feature-is-set), given *tokenizedFeatures*, "`fullscreen`", and false.
+8. If *fullscreen* is false, then return false.
+9. Let *permissionState* be [request permission to use](https://w3c.github.io/permissions/#dfn-request-permission-to-use) "`window-placement`".
+10. If *permissionState* is not "[granted](https://w3c.github.io/permissions/#dom-permissionstate-granted)", then throw a "[NotAllowedError](https://webidl.spec.whatwg.org/#notallowederror)" [DOMException](https://webidl.spec.whatwg.org/#idl-DOMException).
+11. Return true.
+
+### Open questions
+
+#### Feature detection
+
+There is no standard API for querying which features are supported in the [Widow.open()](https://html.spec.whatwg.org/multipage/window-object.html#dom-open-dev) `features` argument. There is no way for a web application to check that the user agent supports the `fullscreen` key in the `features` argument without calling the API and detecting if the resulting window is fullscreen (i.e. window boundary comparisons).
+
+The ability to detect supported keys of the `features` argument is out of scope for this proposal.
+
+#### Exiting fullscreen (Restoring bounds)
+
+The living standard algorithm for [exit fullscreen](https://fullscreen.spec.whatwg.org/#exit-fullscreen) does not specify the user agent's behavior of the restored window:
+
+```
+9. If resize is true, resize doc’s viewport to its "normal" dimensions.
+```
+
+It may be worth exploring an extension of the spec to specify that a window opened directly to fullscreen using this proposal, should be restored to the bounds originally specified in the (`left`, `top`, `width`, `height`). In the meantime, a user agent may decide how the window is restored.
+
+
+#### Overlapping Fullscreen Windows / Invalid coordinates
+
+This proposal & spec change does not define the behavior of the user agent when the requested coordinates (`left`, `right`) overlap an existing (fullscreen) browser window. The intention of this proposal is for web applications to launch popups on secondary displays, however that may not always happen due to user / developer errors or defects. For example, a web application creating a fullscreen window on in a single display environment with an already fullscreen browser window.
+
+Each user agent may define their own behavior and security safeguards for these scenarios. For example pre-existing protections prevent placing popups over fullscreen:
+* Chrome exits fullscreen (see
+    [ForSecurityDropFullscreen](https://source.chromium.org/chromium/chromium/src/+/main:content/public/browser/web_contents.h?q=ForSecurityDropFullscreen))
+* Firefox exits fullscreen
+* Safari opens the popup in a separate fullscreen space
+
+## Security Considerations
+
+A notable security consideration stems from the fact that the web application may launch a fullscreen window on a display that the user is not looking at, since the [user activation](https://html.spec.whatwg.org/multipage/interaction.html#tracking-user-activation) (i.e. button click) may have occurred on another display which the user is focused on. The user may not notice the fullscreen window transition, nor the fullscreen bubble (e.g. Firefox's "\<origin\> is now full screen [Exit Full Screen (Esc)]" or Chrome's "Press [Esc] to exit full screen") which could allow for a malicious application to mimic other applications or the operating system without the user realizing that it is a browser window.
+
+This is partially mitigated by gating this feature on the "`window-placement`" permission. Users should only grant permissions for [powerful features](https://w3c.github.io/permissions/#dfn-powerful-feature) to web applications that they trust.
+
+This could also be mitigated further by having the user agent show the fullscreen bubble only when the user first interacts with the cross-display fullscreen window. In this scenario, there is a higher confidence that the user will see the fullscreen bubble.
+
+## Privacy Considerations
+
+This feature does not expose any information to sites, and there are no privacy considerations to note beyond those already documented in the Multi-Screen Window Placement [Privacy Considerations](https://www.w3.org/TR/window-placement/#privacy) section. The feature is gated behind the "`window-placement`" permission, so it does not expose any information outside what is already available from the API when permission is granted.
+
+## Alternatives Considered
+
+ * Keeping the existing behavior. Web applications can create a popup, and then expand it's bounds to consume the entire display to mimic fullscreen content.
+   * This contains window borders and decorations not appropriate for some use cases.
+ * Allow a target-screen fullscreen request after opening a cross-screen popup
+   * This is less intuitive for the application developer and requires more complex changes to user activation signals which has a higher risk for misuse or abuse.