Is it possible to prevent the user screen from erasing on a page?

Question

Is it possible to prevent the user screen from erasing on a page?

Asked 7 years ago

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I believe that all operating systems have the option for the screen to erase after a certain user downtime, mainly as a way to save battery, however, it is not always desired that this happens.

For example: when watching a video, the user may be inactive during its playback, but it is desired that the screen does not delete itself every little bit - which actually does not happen by default.

But what if my page has similar behavior? I can have a blog post that I hope the user takes longer to read, getting inactive during this period.

You can tell the browser that the screen should not erase after a period of user inactivity on a given page?
This setting from Javascript will override the operating system user settings?
In terms of usability, it would be interesting to inform the user that the screen would not be deleted on this page?

Obs.: It’s easy to find some codes that promise to do this by adding a video running in the background. Preferably, I would like solutions that do not do this, because they seem to be a common way of solving the problem.

– Woss

2017/10/30 at 13:19

1 answer

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by OnoSendai • **36,218** points · Answer 1 · 2017-10-30T14:26:41+00:00

There is no standard yet. Several browsers and Oses implement in a certain way. That said, there are standardization initiatives.

iOS: UIApplication.idleTimerDisabled
Android: Wake Locks: supports "system" and "display".
Windows 8: Idle detection for Windows Phone 8.
Firefoxos: Navigator.requestWakeLock() - Supports "cpu", "display" and "wifi".
Chromeapps: Chrome.power.requestKeepAwake() - supports "system" and "display".
Chrome: Navigator.getWakeLock() - supports "system" and "screen".
Tizen: Tizen.power.request() - supports "cpu" and "screen".

Source.

You can tell the browser that the screen should not erase after a period of user inactivity on a given page?

This is the role of these Apis, however each has a different implementation (and specification).

This setting from Javascript will override the operating system user settings?

Yes.

In terms of usability, it would be interesting to inform the user that the screen would not be deleted on this page?

It depends on the case, but in general I would consider it a good practice.