Re: SURVEY: Accept requirement for immediate mode graphics a la canvas element?

On Nov 22, 2007, at 8:50 AM, Joshue O Connor wrote:

> Does <canvas> (if I am correct in my first sentence) allow various  
> kinds
> of fall back content to serve different user needs also? Or is it a  
> case
> of "Can't see the video" here a text equivalent rather like <img>? Is
> <canvas> a "one piece of fall back/alternate content" element?

<canvas> can have arbitrary markup as fallback content, not just text.  
So, for example, you can include structured text, form controls, ARIA  
markup or some combination of these to give a full accessible  
experience.

> This is a tricky issue.
>
> I have seen some cool things done with <canvas> but am unsure of if
> whether it is suitable as a mechanism to serve the needs of AT users.
> This is an interesting juncture as the multimedia explosion on the web
> means that we been to define elements that can deal with very complex
> and varying modalities. Unless the web gets 'stolen' by some  
> proprietary
> platform that can do all this stuff, and better that HTML5.
>
> Am undecided myself about <canvas> vs SVG but I do know that SVG has
> been around longer and has functionality that I just don't know if  
> it is
> possible with <canvas>.
>
> If anyone knows - please enlighten me.

SVG can do things that <canvas> can't, and vice versa. There are also  
things that both can do, but one may be a better choice than the  
other. Fortunately it's not an either-or proposition. The latest  
versions of Safari, Opera and Firefox support both canvas and SVG. So  
both immeidate-mode and structured retained-mode graphics are available.

Hope this hels,
Maciej