Contents

Video Controls

Whether the browser's play, pause, volume, and timeline bar are shown.

Where to find it
Labelled Video Controls in the "Selected Component" section of the Modify drawer.
Offered by
The Video component. Other components do not have this setting.
Per device
Yes — you can set one value for every screen, or separate values for phone, tablet, and desktop.

In plain English

Controls are the familiar bar along the bottom of a video: play and pause, the timeline you can drag, the volume, and usually a fullscreen button. They are drawn by the visitor's own browser, so they look native on every device and work with a keyboard and a screen reader without you doing anything.

They are on by default, and for any video someone is meant to watch, that is the answer. Leave them alone.

The one case for turning them off is a video that is really moving decoration — a looping clip behind a headline, playing silently, that nobody is expected to interact with. There, a control bar would be visual noise for a video there is nothing to control.

What each option does

OptionWhat you will see
trueShow the playback controls. The right choice for any video with something to say.
falseHide them. Only for a silent, looping background clip.

When you would use it

  • Any video the visitor is meant to watch: leave this on.
  • A muted, looping background clip: turn it off.

How to change it

  1. Click the video component on the canvas.
  2. In the Modify drawer, open "Selected Component", then "Video Controls".
  3. Choose "true" to show them or "false" to hide them.
One value, or one per device? Every input in this setting sits under a “Same value for all resolutions” checkbox. Leave it checked for a single value everywhere, or uncheck it to give phones, tablets, and desktops their own. How per-device values work.

Watch out for

  • Hiding the controls leaves no way to pause, mute, or skip. If the video has sound, that is a genuine accessibility problem, not a style choice.
  • A hidden control bar and no autoplay means the video simply never plays. If you turn controls off, turn on Video Autoplay, Video Muted, and Video Loop.

Related settings

For developers

The technical reference for what this setting produces: MDN: the video element. You do not need any of it to use the setting — it is there for whoever is building the components or debugging the published page.

Where to go next