How can I disable the Escape key while using a lab in full screen mode?

Modified on Thu, 1 Feb at 3:55 PM

Disable the ESC key so that your application receives the command when in full-screen mode

Full Screen Mode in OrasiLabs resizes the lab display to consume the entire active window in your browser. Full Screen Mode often helps to make the lab more readable. For example, it can be easier to see small icons and fonts or to resolve any pixilation and font kerning that might occur when the lab is displayed in less than a full screen.

Then, to exit Full Screen Mode, you can press the escape key (ESC) to return to Expanded Mode (where the surrounding browser pane is still visible). Using ESC in this fashion to exit Full Screen Mode is a standard browser feature that most modern browsers support and, in fact, require. Currently, there is no way to disable this behavior in the browsers.

NOTE: For a complete description of using the student lab browser controls, please see the article Using The Student Portal.

However, some applications require the use of the ESC key in the application itself. This can be problematic when you're in Full Screen Mode because the ESC key will be recognized by OrasiLabs and never passed to the application. Instead, you will be exited from Full Screen Mode and returned to Expanded Mode.

One alternative is to open the OrasiLabs lab in a new tab before putting the lab window into Full Screen Mode. In this way, you can use the browser controls to enter Full Screen Mode rather than the corresponding OrasiLabs controls. In Google Chrome or Mozilla Firefox, doing so will disable the ESC key from exiting Full Screen Mode and instead pass the ESC key to your lab application. It works nearly the same way in Apple Safari as well, with one extra step.

To disable the ESC key so that it will be sent to your OrasiLabs application instead, perform the following steps:

Google Chrome or Mozilla Firefox:

Once you've opened a lab and entered the Expanded View, open the OrasiLabs lab in a new browser tab by selecting Open In New Tab. This will open an additional tab in the browser that is dedicated to the current lab session.
Open Full Screen Mode through the browser controls by either using F11 or by selecting Settings (depicted as an ellipsis) and choosing Enter Full Screen (depicted as a double-headed arrow).

NOTE: To close Full Screen in Google Chrome or Mozilla Firefox, use either F11 again or swipe down from the top of the screen to display the Settings menu again.

Apple Safari:

Once you've opened a lab and entered the Expanded View, open the OrasiLabs lab in a new browser tab by selecting Open In New Tab. This will open an additional tab in the browser that is dedicated to the current lab session.
Open Full Screen Mode through the browser controls by either using Command-F or by selecting the View menu and choosing Enter Full Screen.
Select the View menu and disable Always Show Toolbar In Full Screen.

NOTE: To close Full Screen in Apple Safari, select the View menu and choose Exit Full Screen.