Following on from  https://crbug.com/594868#c50  (Comments 50--52).

I'm not a UX person but here are my thoughts (repeating from 51 above):

- There is a way to exit full screen using just the mouse: right-click -> Exit Full Screen.
- Keyboard shortcuts for tab management also work here: Ctrl+W for close tab and Ctrl+PageUp/PageDown for switch tabs.
- This isn't anything to do with PDFs. The exact same scenario can be found if a HTML page opens another HTML page with target=_blank. Therefore any solution that involves the PDF-specific UI isn't really addressing the general problem.

I think the real issue being identified here is the weirdness of a multi-tab site (i.e., one that deliberately uses target=_blank to open itself across multiple browser tabs) within fullscreen mode, which has no tab management UI. My personal feeling is that we don't want to start providing tab management UI (close tab, switch tabs) within fullscreen. The whole point of fullscreen is that you just look at the contents of a single tab, and while advanced users can use keyboard shortcuts to switch tabs within fullscreen, the intended use case for most users is that you are interacting with a single tab, and press Esc when you want to get back to normal browsing.

I think this is a WontFix. Adding Alex from UX if you have a different opinion.

Thank you for replying and offering some feedback in regards to this issue.

I'd like to make it clear that the issue is with Touch screens specifically.  In my scenario, we do not have access to a mouse/keyboard because the laptops are stored behind the large touchscreen monitors.

What we want is a solution that will work for Touch and also provide the best user experience.

Yes, we can long press on the browser window to get the context menu and click Exit Full Screen and then close the new tab.  This is not a good user experience and there should be some way to close a tab that is open in full screen.  You are correct, we do not want to add a bunch of GUI elements to fullscreen mode because that would defeat the purpose of fullscreen mode.  We love that all of the elements of the browser disappear and that what is left and visible is just the website.

Multi-tab sites are common practice. We typically use a target="_blank" link to open a new tab if the user opens a PDF or external link to another website.  I do think that it is worth some investigation to try to come up with a way for users that only have access to Touch to close the browser window if they are in fullscreen mode.  

Touchscreens are becoming even more popular/common for Windows with Surface and other touchscreen devices.

If this ends up being a Wontfix then I thank you for consideration.  An option that we have is to change the URLs to target="_parent" so the link opens in a new window which would not be in full screen mode.  This is not ideal because I think its a better user experience to open a new tab vs a new window.

Thank you for your time!

Hi,

It sounds like you have a very specific use case. Like you're building a kiosk app using the web platform and you effectively want the PDF to be a modal window: the user pops open a PDF, interacts with it, and when they're done, they hit a close button and go back to where they were.

This isn't really a normal use case on the web and as I have said above, I don't think it's right for Chrome in general to have UI built in to the PDF viewer for closing the current tab while in fullscreen. Like I said, this issue isn't specific to PDF, so it doesn't make sense to add UI there.

> Multi-tab sites are common practice.

Yes they are, but they don't work well in combination with full screen (and adding a close button won't help in general). If you have a multi-tab site (like, say, Google Drive + Docs, which has one tab for the file browser and a tab for each open document), the browser's tab strip is effectively part of your site's UI. If the user chooses to use it in fullscreen, they opt out of the tab management UI that we provide. That's fine, but we shouldn't disrespect that by adding more tab management UI in fullscreen.

I think your use case is a bad fit for browser tabs. Have you considered building your site in a single tab, and opening the modal PDF window inside an iframe in the same tab, providing your own close button UI? This way you control the whole experience and aren't dependent on the browser providing tab management UI in fullscreen.

I can modify our website to load the PDFs into a modal window and then add my own GUI to close the window.  That might be our best option.

I still think that adding a way to close the browser window when it is in full screen mode should be in there.

The reason is when you open a new tab in full screen mode and the user cannot close the window, you have effectively created a dead-end for the user.  They can't get out of it.

I'll discuss with my team.  I appreciate your time! Thank you!