HTML5 media controls and Firefox

Yesterday saw the release of the latest version of Firefox, version 12.0. It just so happens that prior to upgrading this browser at home, I was looking into an issue that Firefox had with the audio element, where it would appear to jump about as it worked out the element’s height, when I noticed something odd.

Basically Firefox didn’t have this issue with the audio element anymore, which I thought was cool. But then I noticed that the element also no longer had any volume slider controls (the video element still does), just a volume button which mutes or unmutes the sound.

On further investigation it turns out that the audio element is also now accessible via the keyboard, with the left and right arrow keys allowing you to skip around the audio file, and the up and down arrow keys allow you to increase and decrease the audio volume. So the functionality is still there, but only via the keyboard. Naturally being accessible via the keyboard is a good thing, but I did wonder why the volume slider had disappeared.

Early this morning I sent a Twitter message to Mozilla’s Rob Hawkes and Robert Nyman asking if they knew anything about it. Rob responded in the negative, but went digging and informed me that it was removed due to two bugs: #502892 and #649490 and would return once these are fixed.

Incidentally, after upgrading to Firefox 12.0 I also noticed that both the media controls for both the audio and video elements have been given a smarter look. Sadly the media controls still disappear when JavaScript is disabled, and fullscreen video is now also supported (since version 10.0).