Hi Tab,
We are trying to make canvas accessible and we are trying to provide hit
testing support in canvas vs. throwing out canvas for SVG. SVG has a VERY
long way before it is accessible and canvas developers, who have canvas
implementations, don't want to throw all their work away to get hit testing
by using SVG.
I have a very large IBM application in development and SVG given the state
of SVG accessibility and how the application is constructed it is not a
good fit. I also have a commitment to ensure HTML 5 is fully accessible, as
part of the HTML accessibility task force effort, and we need to make
magnifiers aware of drawing object location and dimensions in canvas.
Also, there is a need to have hit testing support in canvas and I am trying
to marry an accessibility feature with a mainstream feature developers
need.
I had suggested full retained mode graphics by creating drawing objects
that would inherit the 2d Context API of canvas, however the discussion on
the list was indicated that was more than people wanted. So a subset of
retained mode graphics using draw paths to form the bounds of objects is
where the discussion is currently. Things like font, brush, or other
retained mode features would be left to the canvas context as is.
Rich
Rich Schwerdtfeger
CTO Accessibility Software Group
From: "Tab Atkins Jr." <jackalmage@gmail.com>
To: Richard Schwerdtfeger/Austin/IBM@IBMUS
Cc: Cameron McCormack <cam@mcc.id.au>, Charles Pritchard
<chuck@jumis.com>, Cynthia Shelly <cyns@microsoft.com>,
david.bolter@gmail.com, Frank Olivier
<Frank.Olivier@microsoft.com>, Mike@w3.org,
public-canvas-api@w3.org, public-html@w3.org,
public-html-a11y@w3.org
Date: 06/23/2011 03:30 PM
Subject: Re: hit testing and retained graphics
On Thu, Jun 23, 2011 at 12:56 PM, Richard Schwerdtfeger
<schwer@us.ibm.com> wrote:
>> So normally, I imagine, hit testing would be done either by using
>> isPointInPath() or by custom code looking at a mouse event’s x/y values.
>> I think this proposal doesn’t work with isPointInPath(), though, is that
>> right?
>>
> I think it would but we would need to incorporate Z order and a notion of
> the last drawn element to compute which element is on top. The user agent
> would need to manage this.
You are attempting to recreate a retained-mode API in an
immediate-mode API. Why is "use SVG" not sufficient for this?
~TJ
