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wayne
New Participant
August 29, 2023

Is WebXR dom-overlay support hidden behind a feature flag?

  • August 29, 2023
  • 10 replies
  • 5751 views

Hi,

I'm trying to use the WebXR `dom-overlay` feature.  

I've tried some online demos and turning on these Chrome flags:
  1. "WebXR Experiments"
  2. "Experimental Platform features"

But no joy.  

Is this simply not supported?  

Is there any plan to support it?

Thanks
Wayne

    10 replies

    franciscoreis
    Participant
    September 7, 2023

    I would like to emphasize how important the DOM Overlay is also in my WebXR developments. Please, when would it be available?

    Francisco

    0xtito
    New Participant
    November 2, 2023

    Hey i dont know if you already found the solution or a work around - but there is a great library I have used to created interfaces with. So when I clicked some button on the interface, I would interact with the dom that way.

    Hope that helps. 
    https://github.com/coconut-xr/koestlich

    franciscoreis
    Participant
    November 2, 2023

    Thanks for the link, it does look polished and I liked particularly the text and animation features,

    I do need real DOM elements as in DOM-Overlay WebXR specs to achieve a smooth transition from 2D to 3D to immersive for my https://umniverse.com .

    It seams DOM-Overlay would be easy to implement so I wonder why for now it is still only available in mobile Chrome.

     

    automaton82
    New Participant
    March 13, 2024

    Was there any update on this? Does the Quest 3 WebXR support DOM overlay now?

    franciscoreis
    Participant
    March 14, 2024

    Quest 3 browser now runs the AR example with DOM overlay, a rectangle changing colors.

    I do not think it is hidden behind a flag (did I change it before?) but I will confirm that soon.
     
    runs on Quest 3.
    automaton82
    New Participant
    March 14, 2024

    Hey thanks for the reply. That's the exact sample I use to test, it doesn't show the DOM when you enter AR. There's supposed to be the colored rectangles (I see those), but then also an informational panel and "Exit AR" button coming from the DOM. I don't see those.

     

    Do you?

    franciscoreis
    Participant
    March 14, 2024

    You are right, DOM-overlay must be set as optional so it runs but no DOM elements are shown.

    It is really a pity that Meta does not implement this simple feature part of the WebXR standard.

    Even on Android, why Chrome does not implement it in VR and only in AR? Really strange...

    EvilRobotOverlord
    New Participant
    March 20, 2024

    Chrome doesn't implement DOM Overlay for VR because the W3C DOM Overlay spec is only for immersive AR sessions: https://github.com/immersive-web/dom-overlays/blob/master/explainer.md

    franciscoreis
    Participant
    March 20, 2024

    Thanks for telling me that.

    So it is the Spec that is stupid for it is easy to understand that DOM-overlay would also be very useful in VR. 

    Anyway, chromium could implement it 😉

    khelkun
    Participant
    March 27, 2025

    Fun fact, it does work for immerisve-ar in the Meta immersive-web-emulator as far as you modify the ar-barebones sample to set:

    <div id="overlay" style ="position: absolute">

     But it does not work on the concrete Meta Quest 3 device. Sounds like the Meta Quest browser does not implement it although the regular Chrome browser does.

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