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JoeDuffus's avatar
JoeDuffus
Brass Contributor
Oct 30, 2020

Picture-in-picture volume control and clickable icon

Chromium browsers used to have a volume control on the PiP window, and a progress bar. These have disappeared from many of them, except Vivaldi and Opera. Adding them to Edge would be a competitive advantage. 

 

Another improvement would be to add a small icon somewhere in the video player (when it's still on the page) that would allow a user to left-click to pop the video out. Vivaldi has this now. The icon can appear only when the mouse hovers over the video player.

  • on HTML5 videos, when you right-click, the picture in picture option is there.
    for YouTube, and other sites, turning this flag on will add a small icon in the global media controls which is for PiP
    edge://flags/#global-media-controls-picture-in-picture
    • JoeDuffus's avatar
      JoeDuffus
      Brass Contributor

      HotCakeX Thanks. I know what the context menu shows. In my case, right-clicking in a Youtube video behaves strangely. On first right-click, I get this:

       

       

      If I right-click a second time, I get this:

       

      where I can pop the video. Other browsers include a better solution: a simple, small icon that appears on hover that requires no repetitive or menu clicking. I also wonder why the right-click context menu behaves differently as well.

       

      • HotCakeX's avatar
        HotCakeX
        MVP
        That's because YouTube present their own customized right-click menu.

        also try the feature I told you about, active using this flag:
        edge://flags/#global-media-controls-picture-in-picture


  • rjtiwari10's avatar
    rjtiwari10
    Iron Contributor
    Yes, volume control is a must feature to use PiP window seamlessly. Currently there is no option to quickly mute or change volume. Team, please look into this suggestion and take Edge ahead than others.
    • HotCakeX's avatar
      HotCakeX
      MVP
      to quickly mute there is a speaker icon that appears on any tab that is producing sound
      • JoeDuffus's avatar
        JoeDuffus
        Brass Contributor

        HotCakeX Here's the implementation of P-in-P on the Opera browser, for comparison. 

         

         

        Similar icon to Edge for muting the volume but with the volume slider immediately to the right, along with time counter. Perfect. Opera also moves the "return video to window" control to top-left on mouseover, rather than sticking it where the movement and volume controls should be. 

         

        Opera's is the best design for this feature I've seen, but I think the Edge developers can meet or exceed what they have done, and make the picture-in-picture feature truly useful.

  • Kened-Ferreira's avatar
    Kened-Ferreira
    Copper Contributor
    Opera is the only browser with a fully developed picture-in-picture feature. It is even possible to control the volume using the mouse wheel. The yandex browser acquires Opera technology, so it also has a well-developed p-in-p. Recently, Firefox added the multi p-in-p feature, so it is possible to have multiple p-in-p windows simultaneously. I have already requested this feature from the Opera and Vivaldi teams, but so far, they have shown no interest in the implementation.
    • JoeDuffus's avatar
      JoeDuffus
      Brass Contributor

      Kened-Ferreira That's a very interesting suggestion! I've never needed to have multiple p-in-p views simultaneously, but it would be a nice addition.

       

      Opera was my main browser for years, until the company sold itself to a Chinese "consortium." I can't trust them under those circumstances, so I abandoned it for Vivaldi, which was where a lot of former Opera people went. They're doing great, but they don't have the coding resources of Microsoft. 

       

      I think Edge has the opportunity here to do something with a common feature no one else has matched. 

      • Kened-Ferreira's avatar
        Kened-Ferreira
        Copper Contributor
        I would like Edge to implement these features in the pip. But big companies like Microsoft tend to be more conservative.

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