<canvas> (was Re: Microsoft has now joined the HTML Working Group)

On Apr 6, 2007, at 10:41 AM, Chris Wilson wrote:

> Maciej Stachowiak wrote:
>
> New elements and apis are in scope.
>
>> More specifically, the charter calls for:
>>
>> * A language evolved from HTML4 for describing the semantics of
>> documents and applications on the World Wide Web.
>> ...
>> Clearly, <canvas> would be covered by these categories and indeed is
>> used by HTML web applications today.
>
> I'm not sure graphics rendering falls in the category of "semantics  
> of documents and applications" - it would seem more like  
> presentation.  I'm not making a strong point here, just saying that  
> it's on the bubble at best.

"Immediate-mode drawing area" happens to be a commonly seen element  
of application UI. It's no more inherently presentational than the  
<img> tag, it just gives an API to create the image on the fly client- 
side, and possibly change it over time.

>   I do think the <canvas> pattern needs to be addressed under the  
> W3C, so I'm not necessarily against it.  Regardless, I would hope  
> we can provide some bridge between us and the other presentation  
> efforts in the W3C.

Immediate-mode graphics (such as <canvas>) and retained-mode  
structured graphics (such as SVG) are both useful, and we're seeing  
Firefox, Opera and Safari at least move to support both. I think the  
boat has sailed on making incompatible changes to <canvas>, but  
perhaps there could be compatible additions to align it a bit more  
with SVG. For example, there could be a <canvas> drawing operation  
that takes the SVG path syntax.

Regards,
Maciej

Received on Friday, 6 April 2007 19:21:41 UTC