The Fullscreen API
provides an easy way for web content to be presented using the user's entire screen. The API lets you easily direct the browser to make an element and its children, if any, occupy the fullscreen, eliminating all browser user interface and other applications from the screen for the duration.
For the moment not all browsers are using the unprefixed version of the API. Consult the table summarizing the prefixes and name differences between them (you can also use Fscreen for vendor agnostic access to the API).
Activating fullscreen mode
Given an element that you'd like to present in fullscreen mode (such as a <video>
, for example), you can present it in fullscreen mode by simply calling its Element.requestFullscreen()
method.
Let's consider this <video>
element:
<video controls id="myvideo"> <source src="somevideo.webm"></source> <source src="somevideo.mp4"></source> </video>
We can put that video into fullscreen mode with script like this:
var elem = document.getElementById("myvideo"); if (elem.requestFullscreen) { elem.requestFullscreen(); }
Presentation differences
It's worth noting a key difference here between the Gecko and WebKit implementations at this time: Gecko automatically adds CSS rules to the element to stretch it to fill the screen: "width: 100%; height: 100%
". WebKit doesn't do this; instead, it centers the fullscreen element at the same size in a screen that's otherwise black. To get the same fullscreen behavior in WebKit, you need to add your own "width: 100%; height: 100%;
" CSS rules to the element yourself:
#myvideo:-webkit-full-screen { width: 100%; height: 100%; }
On the other hand, if you're trying to emulate WebKit's behavior on Gecko, you need to place the element you want to present inside another element, which you'll make fullscreen instead, and use CSS rules to adjust the inner element to match the appearance you want.
Notification
When fullscreen mode is successfully engaged, the document which contains the element receives a fullscreenchange
event. When fullscreen mode is exited, the document again receives a fullscreenchange
event. Note that the fullscreenchange
event doesn't provide any information itself as to whether the document is entering or exiting fullscreen mode, but if the document has a non null fullscreenElement
, you know you're in fullscreen mode.
When a fullscreen request fails
It's not guaranteed that you'll be able to switch into fullscreen mode. For example, <iframe>
elements have the allowfullscreen
attribute in order to opt-in to allowing their content to be displayed in fullscreen mode. In addition, certain kinds of content, such as windowed plug-ins, cannot be presented in fullscreen mode. Attempting to put an element which can't be displayed in fullscreen mode (or the parent or descendant of such an element) won't work. Instead, the element which requested fullscreen will receive a mozfullscreenerror
event. When a fullscreen request fails, Firefox will log an error message to the Web Console explaining why the request failed. In Chrome and newer versions of Opera however, no such warning is generated.
Note: Fullscreen requests need to be called from within an event handler or otherwise they will be denied.
Getting out of full screen mode
The user always has the ability to exit fullscreen mode of their own accord; see Things your users want to know. You can also do so programmatically by calling the Document.exitFullscreen()
method.
Other information
The document
provides some additional information that can be useful when developing fullscreen web applications:
fullscreenElement
- The
fullscreenElement
attribute tells you theelement
that's currently being displayed fullscreen. If this is non-null, the document is in fullscreen mode. If this is null, the document is not in fullscreen mode. fullscreenEnabled
- The
fullscreenEnabled
attribute tells you whether or not the document is currently in a state that would allow fullscreen mode to be requested.
Things your users want to know
You'll want to be sure to let your users know that they can press the ESC key (or F11) to exit fullscreen mode.
In addition, navigating to another page, changing tabs, or switching to another application (using, for example, Alt-Tab) while in fullscreen mode exits fullscreen mode as well.
Example
In this example, a video is presented in a web page. Pressing the Return or Enter key lets the user toggle between windowed and fullscreen presentation of the video.
Watching for the Enter key
When the page is loaded, this code is run to set up an event listener to watch for the Enter key.
document.addEventListener("keydown", function(e) { if (e.keyCode == 13) { toggleFullScreen(); } }, false);
Toggling fullscreen mode
This code is called when the user hits the Enter key, as seen above.
function toggleFullScreen() { if (!document.fullscreenElement) { document.documentElement.requestFullscreen(); } else { if (document.exitFullscreen) { document.exitFullscreen(); } } }
This starts by looking at the value of the fullscreenElement
attribute on the document
(checking it prefixed with both moz
, ms
, or webkit
). If it's null
, the document is currently in windowed mode, so we need to switch to fullscreen mode. Switching to fullscreen mode is done by calling element.requestFullscreen()
.
If fullscreen mode is already active (fullscreenElement
is non-null
), we call document.exitFullscreen()
.
Prefixing
For the moment not all browsers are implementing the unprefixed version of the API (for vendor agnostic access to the Fullscreen API you can use Fscreen). Here is the table summarizing the prefixes and name differences between them:
Standard | Blink (Chrome & Opera) | Gecko (Firefox) | Internet Explorer 11 | Edge | Safari (WebKit) |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
Document.fullscreen |
webkitIsFullScreen |
mozFullScreen |
- | webkitIsFullScreen |
webkitIsFullScreen |
Document.fullscreenEnabled |
webkitFullscreenEnabled |
mozFullScreenEnabled |
msFullscreenEnabled |
webkitFullscreenEnabled |
webkitFullscreenEnabled |
Document.fullscreenElement |
webkitFullscreenElement |
mozFullScreenElement |
msFullscreenElement |
webkitFullscreenElement |
webkitFullscreenElement |
Document.onfullscreenchange |
onwebkitfullscreenchange |
onmozfullscreenchange |
MSFullscreenChange |
onwebkitfullscreenchange |
onwebkitfullscreenchange |
Document.onfullscreenerror |
onwebkitfullscreenerror |
onmozfullscreenerror |
MSFullscreenError |
onwebkitfullscreenerror |
onwebkitfullscreenerror |
Document.exitFullscreen() |
webkitExitFullscreen() |
mozCancelFullScreen() |
msExitFullscreen() |
webkitExitFullscreen() |
webkitExitFullscreen() |
Element.requestFullscreen() |
webkitRequestFullscreen() |
mozRequestFullScreen() |
msRequestFullscreen() |
webkitRequestFullscreen() |
webkitRequestFullscreen() |
Specifications
Specification | Status | Comment |
---|---|---|
Fullscreen API | Living Standard | Initial version. |
Browser compatibility
All browsers implement this APIs. Nevertheless some implement it with prefixed names we slightly different spelling: e.g. instead of requestFullscreen()
, there is a MozRequestFullScreen()
.
Feature | Chrome | Edge | Firefox (Gecko) | Internet Explorer | Opera | Safari |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Basic support | 15 -webkit | (Yes) | 9.0 (9.0) -moz 47 (47) (behind full-screen-api.unprefix.enabled ) |
11 -ms | 12.10 | 5.0 -webkit |
fullscreenEnabled |
20 -webkit | (Yes) | 10.0 (10.0) -moz 47 (47) (behind full-screen-api.unprefix.enabled ) |
11 -ms | 12.10 | 5.1 -webkit |
Feature | Android | Chrome | Edge | Firefox Mobile (Gecko) | IE Mobile | Opera Mobile | Safari Mobile |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Basic support | ? | 28 -webkit | (Yes) | 9.0 (9.0)-moz 47.0 (47) (behind full-screen-api.unprefix.enabled ) |
? | ? | ? |
fullscreenEnabled |
? | 28 -webkit | (Yes) | 10.0 (10.0) moz 47.0 (47) (behind full-screen-api.unprefix.enabled ) |
? | ? | ? |