Google Docs will now use canvas based rendering

Re:Google Docs will now use canvas based rendering by abraxas on Wednesday May 12, 2021 @10:01AM (#27130409)

I think they already have with Flutter

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Re:Google Docs will now use canvas based rendering by rektide on Wednesday May 12, 2021 @11:34AM (#27131515)

This tech is called CanvasKit, and it scares the shit out of me. Google has, in this case, carefully written a proprietary custom API to take the role of Web Extensions (albeit with far more controls/restrictions/less flexibility) for Docs, but as more and more web properties switch to using Flutter with CanvasKit, we'll see less and less of the web be hypertext, less of the web be scrapeable, less of the web have good accessibility, less of the web be able to use extensions.

To me, pushing pixels in people's faces is not the web. The web implies hypertext, the web implies user-agents that fulfill the user's desired agencies. Developers switching to Canvas obstructs everything good, unique, & empowering about the web, converts it to the same terrible awful anti-user mess that everything else in tech is.

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Re:Google Docs will now use canvas based rendering by munificent on Wednesday May 12, 2021 @01:16PM (#27132726)

> The web implies hypertext, the web implies user-agents that fulfill the user's desired agencies.

That's entirely valid for many things people put on the web, but clearly not all. A document editor is not hypertext with agencies fulfilled by the user-agent.

The web now supports a wide range of user experiences, and the "text + links" model is great for a subset of those, but not all. The fact that some apps are moving to a different model to me does not imply any existential threat to apps/sites that do fit well as hypertext.

I see a lot of comments in the thread as essentially arguing that now that UPS using jets to ship packages means that soon they're going to take our cars and bicycles away from us.

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Re:Google Docs will now use canvas based rendering by jl6 on Wednesday May 12, 2021 @02:02PM (#27133296)

Just imagine the sheer glee on the faces of the marketing department when their SEO experts tell them there is a technology that allows them to push pixels in peoples' faces while making it harder for users to engage in "unauthorized content use" and harder to block ads.

The web is about to get a whole lot more user hostile.

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Re:Google Docs will now use canvas based rendering by munificent on Wednesday May 12, 2021 @05:04PM (#27135134)

> there is a technology that allows them to push pixels in peoples' faces while making it harder for users to engage in "unauthorized content use" and harder to block ads.

That was exactly true in the Flash days and yet it didn't take over the world or kill the open web.

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Re:Google Docs will now use canvas based rendering by jl6 on Wednesday May 12, 2021 @05:38PM (#27135453)

Canvas is more capable than Flash, it’s supported by everything already, it’s well sandboxed, it’s apparently faster than the alternatives, the technique in question now has the backing of a powerful industry leader, and the underlying technology is an open standard so it’s even got moral high ground.

And it’s possible we only managed to escape Flash-hell thanks to the fortuitous self-interest of Apple, so let’s not be complacent by assuming we’ll escape the next trap.

Having said all that, I actually like the idea of separating web applications from web documents and I don’t at all begrudge web application developers from doing what it takes to improve their applications. I just know it will be abused. The best I can hope for is that it leads to some re-focus on HTML as a stable and finished document language.

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Re:Google Docs will now use canvas based rendering by rektide on Wednesday May 12, 2021 @05:30PM (#27135374)

Flash was small & ignorable enough to block. Nothing significant was lost. The web was winning, easily.

This is the return of Flash, except now, it's backed by Google.

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Re:Google Docs will now use canvas based rendering by riffraff on Wednesday May 12, 2021 @10:49AM (#27130980)

yeah flutter's "web" target has a whole UI framework built inside the <canvas> tag

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Re:Google Docs will now use canvas based rendering by spuz on Wednesday May 12, 2021 @11:07AM (#27131233)

Specifically Flutter 2 which was announced recently and introduces the "web" target and is based on <canvas>.

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