Firefox autoplay policy prevents sound from keyboard input

[jessegreenberg]

From phetsims/quadrilateral#437, it was discovered that Firefox does not start sound from keyboard events. You have to activate a button with a click event (or another activating event) first.

Maybe some iteration this can be investigated with extra common code work. As suggested in phetsims/quadrilateral#437 (comment), that might include a bug report to Mozilla.

This is related to #179 (same problem, different input/browser).

Another long term solution could be to add a "Start" button to all PhET sims that initializes media.

[zepumph]

Ideas from dev meeting:

• This may only be a problem with single screen simulations, since the home screen likely will trigger a "click" event.
• "Enable Sound" button on the nav bar (only show when detecting the issue on firefox + sound sim).
• Handle this with documentation/teacher tips/FAQ.
• Where is the bug report in Firefox?

[jessegreenberg]

Lets write up a bug report to Mozilla, I will do that. It probably is not wise to write our own code to find a workaround for this (and there likely isn't one). The design team has not indiciated that we need some design indication or solution for this.

[jessegreenberg]

I did some more testing before submitting a bug report. I can no longer reproduce the problem in Windows 10 Firefox 114.0.2 (64 bit) for https://phet-dev.colorado.edu/html/geometric-optics/1.3.0-dev.1/phet/geometric-optics_all_phet.html?screens=1.

But @chrisklus helped test on MacOS Firefox 114.0.2 (64 bit) and observed that the problem is still there. So I will still write up a report to them about it.

[jessegreenberg]

A report was submitted through bugzilla, we will see how they respond. Removing my assignment until then.