Re: 3d favicons

On Sun, Aug 19, 2018 at 10:26 PM Florian Bösch <pyalot@gmail.com> wrote:

> On Mon, Aug 20, 2018 at 5:35 AM Rik Cabanier <rcabanier@magicleap.com>
> wrote:
>
>> On Sun, Aug 19, 2018 at 9:17 AM Florian Bösch <pyalot@gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>>> I'd favor making it possible to target the favicon with a canvas
>>> directly. As in:
>>>
>>>> <link id="icon" rel="icon" type="image/png" href="..." animated="True">
>>>> <script>
>>>>   window.onload = function(){
>>>>      var icon = document.getElementById('icon');
>>>>      var ctx = icon.getContext('3d'); // or 2D
>>>>      ...
>>>>   }
>>>>  </script>
>>>
>>>
>>> That way you can put in anything you want (even video) at any speed you
>>> want (realtime if so desired, or slower), with any technique you want (2D
>>> canvas or 3D canvas).
>>>
>> How would you make it 3d? It seems that would require script to run...
>>
>
> Correct, a script would need to run.
>
>
>> I don't think this approach will work though as the favicon is not part
>> of the DOM and can be rendered when the document isn't even loaded (ie for
>> bookmarks). I suspect such a change will be hard to specify and implement
>>
>
> It's my impression that the majority use-case for an animated favicon is
> in the tab when the web page is open (running a script also allows the page
> to interact live with the icon, so that's an additional benefit).
>
For use-cases which cannot execute scripts (like bookmarks) they'd use the
> fallback image provided.
>

Bookmarks, history, shortcuts, last-used pages, non-browser use. Having
just a 2D image there would be a big limitation


> I suppose you'd object to running a script everywhere a favicon can be
> displayed mainly on performance concerns (who wants to run like say 200
> scripts on a bookmark overview page or somesuch?).
>

It's not that I "object" to such a feature. My fear is that this approach
will have many security implications.
For instance, what is the context of the script? What is the origin? Do we
require SSL?


> But if that is the main objection, then animated 3D favicons everywhere
> are out no matter how you do them. Unlike static (or even moving) images,
> which have well defined performance characteristics, 3D content can easily
> be made to consume any amount of computing resource (for instance make a
> favicon with 10 million triangles).
>

Yes, this IS a problem. We might have to work with Khronos on a
web-friendly version of gltf