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Controlbar doesn't hide on mobile safari (iPad)

Hi everyone,

I've got a problem with displaying my video's on the iPad.
I want to hide all controls, the play button and the controls at the bottom, both before the video is played and while it is playing. (I'm controling the video from a distance with javascript.)

This is my code:

<div id='containerTeun'>Loading the player ...</div>
<script type='text/javascript'>
jwplayer('containerTeun').setup({
flashplayer: 'jwplayer/player.swf',
file: 'movies/teun_02.mp4',
height: 100,
width: 180,
'image': 'imagesipad/zw_r1_c6.jpg',
'controlbar':'none',
'icons': 'false'
});
</script>

Simple, isn't it?

On all my browsers, including Safari, the controls stay hidden, except for when I vieuw my page on an iPad.
There, before the video plays, the play button and the controls at the bottom are hidden, but while it plays the controls show for the first five (or so) seconds.

I would like them to be hidden all the time!

'controlbar':'hide',

doesn't work either.

Can anybody help me with this?
Thanks,

Jopie

29 Community Answers

Up Down

Ethan Feldman

JW Player Support Agent  
0 rated :

It isn’t possible to hide the native controls on iOS I’m afraid.

Up Down

JW Player

User  
0 rated :

O, that's too bad.

But thanks for the quick reply.

I'll try to make it the contolbar as inconspicuous as possible with a custom skin.
Best,

Jopie

Up Down

JW Player

User  
0 rated :

Ehm, Ethan?

I made a simple skin where all control elements are either tiny and white or entirely see-through. I also linked to the .xml file instead of the .zip file, like you suggested in this post:
http://www.longtailvideo.com/support/forums/addons/using-and-creating-skins/22602/glow-skin-not-loading-in-html5-mode

But on my iPad, I still see those wide grey controls.

In this post:
http://www.longtailvideo.com/support/forums/jw-player/using-playlists/23298/skins-in-ios

you say: "On iOS, the skin will only show up before and after playback. During playback the player is replaced by a default <video> tag."

What do you mean by that?

Am I at the mercy of any video-player styling the iPad people put on their gadgets, and is there no way I can make the video controls on the iPad look different?

My video's are tiny and that controlbar on the iPad covers more than one third of the picture.

Thanks,

Jopie

Up Down

Ethan Feldman

JW Player Support Agent  
0 rated :

“Am I at the mercy of any video-player styling the iPad people put on their gadgets, and is there no way I can make the video controls on the iPad look different?”

I’m afraid so :(

Up Down

JW Player

User  
0 rated :

Ethan,
I am not completely sure about this, but I heard that it is a known issue with HTML5 on iPads. Including a 'controls' attribute in the HTML5 video tag tells the browser to display default controls, but the funny part is that setting controls=none will ALSO display the default controls. The solution here is to OMIT the 'controls' attribute altogether. If so, then the jwplayer should detect if it is used on an iPad and not include the 'control' attribute in that case.

Here is an example of HTML5 video tag that does not have default controls on an iPad: http://videojs.com/

Try that on an iPad, play the video and go to full screen mode. There will be no controls visible.

Up Down

Ethan Feldman

JW Player Support Agent  
0 rated :

Yes, we are going to fix this issue for a future release!

Up Down

JW Player

User  
0 rated :

I just tried this on an iPad with v. 5.10 of the player, and this is still an issue:

http://www.asldeafined.com/vidtest/

Any idea when this issue may be resolved?

Thanks,
Ben

Up Down

Ethan Feldman

JW Player Support Agent  
0 rated :

You are setting controlbar to none here, that will have zero effect on iOS.

Up Down

JW Player

User  
0 rated :

There would be a lot of advantages by not specifying the native controls in HTML mode on iOS. (But only in fullscreen.)
The skin would work and also the captions plugin.

Any ETA on this?

Thanks,
Yannick

Up Down

Ethan Feldman

JW Player Support Agent  
0 rated :

@Yannick – I have tested using out stock controls on iOS and the experience isn’t just as good. I can send you an example.

Up Down

JW Player

User  
0 rated :

@Ethan: Yes please (yannick at freecaster dot com)

Even if this is not optimal, making it an option would be interesting.
Having the subtitles work on iOS (non-fullscreen) woud be VERY interesting for us and our customers.

Up Down

JW Player

User  
0 rated :

Also, being able to have layers on top of the windowed player on iOS (by disabling the controls) would also be very welcome. This would let us use the JW Player inside custom and creative environments, etc.

Up Down

Ethan Feldman

JW Player Support Agent  
0 rated :

Wait, I am confused, subtitles do work on iOS non fullscreen (on the iPad), but they need to be encoded into the mp4.

I will send you the email.

Up Down

JW Player

User  
0 rated :

Did this ever get resolved. I have need to disable the controls on the ipad.

Up Down

Ethan Feldman

JW Player Support Agent  
0 rated :

In JW6 this behavior will be different.

Up Down

JW Player

User  
0 rated :

Hey Ethan - Does that mean that in JW6 I will be able to disable the controls on the ipad?

Up Down

Ethan Feldman

JW Player Support Agent  
0 rated :

Yes, you should try out the beta to test – http://developer.longtailvideo.com/trac/wiki/Player6Beta

Up Down

JW Player

User  
0 rated :

Ethan thanks for pointing me at the Player6Beta. I created a version of the file that disables the controls for the jwplayer

bc.. http:// baystateacademy.org / jwplayer/ jw6-beta/ test/ mp4-Tims02.html



However the controls still load on the ipad. I have tested all the versions of ipad-ios on BrowserStack and the controls always show. I have confirmed that the controls do not show on ie-chrome-firefox with various os versions.

Please let me know if I need to create a custom skin to get rid of the controls with the ipad.

Up Down

Ethan Feldman

JW Player Support Agent  
0 rated :

Have you tested on an actual device?

Up Down

JW Player

User  
0 rated :

Have confirmed controls: 'false' works properly on non-mobile device (Firefox latest on windows) and does NOT work on mobile (iPad Safari.

Should I submit a bug?

Up Down

JW Player

User  
0 rated :

Just to clarify, this is on Player6Beta

Up Down

Ethan Feldman

JW Player Support Agent  
0 rated :

Do you have an example? Are you using beta1 or beta2?

Up Down

JW Player

User  
0 rated :

Hi Ethan

Technically it is possible on the iPad.

If you implement the HTML5-video-tag without the property "controls" you don't have any controls on the iPad.

So you could build you video-tag without controls-property if the settings "controls: false" are set.

<video src="http://media.w3.org/2010/05/bunny/movie.mp4">
Your user agent does not support the HTML5 Video element.
</video>

--> No Controls on iPad

Up Down

Ethan Feldman

JW Player Support Agent  
0 rated :

Yes, you can set the controls propriety to false. This also works in JW6, I believe.

Up Down

JW Player

User  
0 rated :

Just checked back on this issue. Still broken. It's simple.

Put this on a page. Open in desktop browser: no controls. Open in mobile Safari: there are controls.

Would really like to see this fixed. Should I submit a bug?

bc.. <div id="examplePlayer"><a href="http://www.sintel.org/">Get the Sintel trailer</a></div>
<script type="text/javascript">
jwplayer("examplePlayer").setup({
controls:false,
sources: [{
file: 'http://content.bitsontherun.com/videos/3XnJSIm4-52qL9xLP.mp4'
},{
file: 'http://content.bitsontherun.com/videos/3XnJSIm4-27m5HpIu.webm'
}],
image: 'http://content.bitsontherun.com/thumbs/3XnJSIm4-640.jpg',
width: 480,
height: 275
});
</script>

Up Down

JW Player

User  
0 rated :

Just to clarify: Confirmed broken still even on jwplayer-free-6-0-2813 today

Up Down

Ethan Feldman

JW Player Support Agent  
0 rated :

Please post a link to where this is broken to – http://www.longtailvideo.com/support/forums/jw-player/bug-reports so our developers can take a look and ticket accordingly, thanks.

Up Down

JW Player

User  
0 rated :

You don't have any off the shelf test case page for your own product in the iPad?

And expect me to go to the trouble of posting an example on my own server somewhere?

I already posted an example inline!

I tracked it down. It's a one line fix... it doesn't seem that you care very much about this bug though!

Up Down

Ethan Feldman

JW Player Support Agent  
1 rated :

I absolutely do, but this particular forum is just for setup issues, just trying to put the right threads in the right places. If you can provide the fix, I will pass it along though, thanks.

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