Allow Developers to Toggle Fullscreen

Feature Requests Engine Features
#1

As a Roblox developer, it is currently too hard to make a setting for players to toggle Fullscreen in developer-made settings menus. This is because it is impossible.

There is already functionality with ToggleFullscreen. However, it is locked only to CoreGui. So, my ask is that developers be allowed to use it for their own settings menus.

If this issue is addressed, it would improve the development experience of everyone because it would allow developers to add this basic setting to their menus.

Notes:

Having both a developer’s games settings and Roblox’s settings isn’t great UX. I’d much rather have all settings in my own menu than having Roblox implement ways to add to their menu. This is because of many reasons: UI, implementation of game-specific things (such as collectibles shown on the side of a pause menu), and developer intent/developer choice.

Just because I can handle this feature responsibly does not mean every developer on Roblox can. This will probably be the backbone of people objecting this feature. I ask, how can Roblox grow if developers can’t make industry standard settings menus?

My Goal:

My goal with this feature request, and many more, is to have everything in my own pause menu. Deeming Roblox’s useless in the hopes that I may be able to entirely remove it without any loss of functionality.

My extensive efforts can be found here: Roblox Menu Remake | Answering: What can and can't developers do on Roblox?

9 Likes
#2

This is horrible idea no offense btw , since there could be a lot of bad actors abusing this.

as a Dev i understand you want to have your own settings menu but you must remember sometimes bad actors could abuse this power.

some games might even force you to play it only on FullScreen which is not ideal as a player.
same goes for sound settings if you roblox takes away the sound settings or the fullscreen settings and the devs dont provide one it would only cause players to dislike the experince.

this would only force devs to spend time making settings options for their games while they could spend making content for people to enjoy.
yea sometimes its good to have some kinda settings for your game but you don’t need to include stuff that is already in the game.

yea its essential thing where its better handled by a trusted actor like Roblox.
you can still make your own settings menu and add customization to your own game where Roblox can’t.

how can Roblox grow if developers can’t make industry standard settings menus?

if you are looking at settings to your game you could implement a sound settings that uses sound groups to lower or raise the volume of a certain sound.
there is a lot of customization you could add to your game but i don’t see the need for this change to happen , well yea if it didn’t exist or Roblox didn’t provide it yea would make sense but if its there and its perfectly working and its not an issue. it would just seem counter intuitive.

6 Likes
#3

Whilst I understand that bad actors exist, using that reasoning, and therefore not allowing developers to use this feature, is holding Roblox back as a whole.

Here are some ideas:

  1. Roblox tailored pop-up/ui that protects the user from ill-intent whilst letting developers do things.

a. Example of this: Roblox allows developers to use that photo module. This prompts the player with UI to take a picture. Whilst developers cannot force a screenshot, then can prompt a user with a Roblox-made pop-up/module: New Selfie Mode Developer Module

b. We could have a pop-up that asks the player if they wish to go into Fullscreen. “Are you sure blah blah blah?”

  1. Give certain developers who can be trusted more features such as Fullscreen toggle access.
    a. This is the less favorable idea. I’ve been researching and thinking about this engineering problem regarding Roblox and locked features since I joined. We have ways to see if people are who they say they are. Developers who would then use these features in a bad way can be dealt with accordingly with the reporting/moderation system.
    b. There can be compromise. People are seemingly afraid of change, but it needs to happen.

No, I don’t think it would. The default would be as it is now. It would be an entirely optional thing.

I’ve been going through the arduous effort of remaking the Roblox menu myself, I know how annoying it is as of current with the goal of total functionality. Community resources can be made to make this theoretical process, that is optional, easier for other devs.

For the sound settings, I am well aware of sound groups. In fact, I’m using them currently in many of my projects. Developers can’t touch MasterVolume, but it’s not needed as we have alternatives. Audio settings are not graphical/display settings however so I feel that to be irrelevant in this case.

I’m willing to spend as much time as it takes to find solutions to different engineering problems. I know we could find a solution that isn’t just blocking developers from using the feature. What we have now is holding all developers, and by extension Roblox, back.

1 Like
#4

I would like you to realize that most PC games force fullscreen, sometimes without even an option to turn it off. It isn’t “not ideal” as a player, there’s actual performance benefits and reasons fullscreen should be used. Alt tab functionality exists, the windows key exists, Plus there’s always the option of it being override-able in the Roblox menu.

What’s counter-intuitive is the absolutely awful user experience that 2 settings menus and 2 pause menus give, and the awful control over graphics. Ironically enough, most devs should be implement a volume slider themselves because for some reason most people play on volume 1. Lots of games implement custom settings, having 2 settings menus isn’t good UX, and for single player games it’d be really nice for a custom menu.

4 Likes
#5

Ironically enough, most devs should be implement a volume slider themselves because for some reason most people play on volume 1.

Yes i do agree most games should add their own sound sliders since it helps you to improve the user experience by allowing them to raise or lower certain sound volumes. as Roblox can’t do that its your game after all.

Alt tab functionality exists, the windows key exists, Plus there’s always the option of it being override-able in the Roblox menu.

This contradicts your main issue here of having 2 menu screens, if you are going to make roblox overwrite the decision you will end up with 2 settings menu again which is still counter intuitive for your goal. either way in both senario’s even if roblox allows games to toggle full screen, you would need to assume there are bad actors who will use this to harm platfrom, so to counter this roblox will give the this method a debounce with will cause your settings menu to be slower than the roblox’s which makes it even more to deal with this non existent issue. my point is this causes more issues than solves problems.

What’s counter-intuitive is the absolutely awful user experience that 2 settings menus and 2 pause menus give, and the awful control over graphics.

yes i do agree roblox needs to give players better options about how the graphics are handled. but the developers should not be able to have any saying in this by choosing it for the players or forcing them into a certain settings. for example depth of field is practically useless if your graphics are lower than 7 but instead of giving the dev the ability to change a user’s graphics to something above 7 we could give them the ability to keep the depth of field on even if the graphics have been lowered. something like that.

#6

Can’t imagine how this could go wrong. For one, bad actors could use a script that would be something like

local fullscreen = game:GetService("FullScreenToggle")

while wait(0.5) do
fullscreen.FullScreen = true
wait(0.5)
fullscreen.FullScreen = false
end

causing it to be extremely annoying and might as well be classified as malware.

1 Like
#7

A solution to that issue could be the player being prompted with something that says “are you sure you wish to go into full-screen?” Or, something similar.

Additionally, I don’t see the argument that people could use this for bad as that strong. Developers can do a lot right now in terms of forcing the player into things, ‘privacy concerns’, and just generally messing with the player. I can prompt a user to invite friends constantly if I wish right now. Flicker their screen, show everyone in a server any info I can get on someone, the list could go on. Developers can abuse many things Roblox has to offer as it currently stands. It doesn’t matter if it’s morally right or if it goes against the Roblox TOS. There will always be bad actors. Keep them in mind yes, but don’t stop everyone from using something that would be useful.

There were and are concerns over people uploading bad material via clothing, games, ect. That’s a real issue. We have solutions to that: Moderation. If someone does something not ok, like the code example you provided, then Roblox should/would take action on them. We have that ‘report abuse’ button on the game pages for a reason.

The requests regarding core actions, or any actions such as this, could be limited by Roblox to stop abuse of the feature. Let’s say a 1 second or less cool-down.

1 Like
#8

A setting that makes you in full-screen by default sounds less abusive than API.

2 Likes
#9

Whilst I somewhat agree, your solution doesn’t address my issue and/or goal with this feature request. In terms of ‘taking the long view’, as is one of Roblox’s value, I believe that developers should be able to make their own settings menus that have merit.

We need to deal with the inevitable problem of abuse in a way that’s not locking basic features for settings menus.

#10

Why would you need this in your menu exactly? It sounds like you’re just trying to fill up space. There’s no practical reason for this to be added.

2 Likes
#11

Translation: since developers already have options to mess with the player, it wouldnt hurt to give them more options to choose from

2 Likes
#12

I’m making a 3D Platformer Collect-a-thon with a pause menu. (that’s standard in the genre) I wish to open my own menu with the buttons Roblox is currently using to open their Escape Menu. (ESC button, Menu Button on Xbox remotes) If I can make a menu that has everything the Roblox Escape menu has, it’s 100% functional and can be opened the same way Roblox’s menu currently is, then Roblox’s menu would not be needed. Thus, the Roblox Escape Menu could be removed without any loss of functionality.

In short: The Roblox Escape Menu has purpose, if I can fulfil those purposes myself, Roblox’s wouldn’t be needed. And, one of those purposes is toggling full-screen.

#14

That’s not at all how malware is known for. Malware is computer software that does malicious things. Scripts that do harmful and bad stuff isn’t really considered malware or software but they are rather stuff that does malicious things inside software which are different from actual malware.