After adding a new Print Preview interface, Mozilla is now preparing to turn on Media Playback Control feature by default in Firefox version 81 without the need to interact with playing media elements by pressing on media keys on keyboard or headset.
Chrome already supports Media Session API on multiple platforms, Firefox has supported the API in version 71, you need to manually enable it by toggling related pref “dom.
Firefox Media Control
Like Chrome, Firefox shows an overlay with volume bar when you press media controls on your keyboard. The feature hasn’t officially made into release, Mozilla has decided to enable the Media Control feature by default in Firefox 81.
What this means is, behind the scenes, the organization turns on the feature by toggling a pref value to true.
You’ve already seen multimedia keyboard keys dependent media control UI in Edge and Chrome browsers, in addition to this, Chrome displays Global Media Controls UI when video or audio is playing in the browser.
Here is how the media control feature works in Firefox:
When a video is playing in Firefox, if you press a multimedia key on keyboard such as Play/Pause or Stop, a virtual control interface appears as shown in the screenshot and lets you control volume, offers playback controls, and shows video thumbnail image and album, and artist name.
To enable or disable the Media Control feature in Firefox
- Launch Firefox browser
- Visit about: config
- Find and change the media.
hardwaremediakeys. enabled pref value to true - You need to change the pref value to false to disable the feature.
We’ve to agree, Media Controlling feature is coming very late to Firefox, but better late than never, what do you say?
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the pause button does not even work when picture-in-picture mode is enabled, I hold that this media control feature will not be more of the same
That overlay is absolutely annoying when one only uses media keys for master volume control.