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Google Docs will now use canvas based rendering

workspaceupdates.googleblog.com

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Re: Google Docs will now use canvas based rendering

#21

Post by nothis »

ZuLuuuuuu wrote: post #5

Maybe because I am out of loop with web development, but this sounds like a huge change to me. So instead of HTML elements, there will be just one big element, and everything will be rendered there? How will text selection work for example? Will Google Docs basically implement a GUI library like GTK, which renders everything itself, but for the web?

And it puts the entire structure behind a giant blackbox. Yucky.

As if fate tries to prove a point, I recently struggled with a random ass google docs document and just wanted to download and import to use in my own spreadsheet software. There probably would have been a Google Approved way of doing it but if there was, they intentionally made it hard. I ended up copying the HTML somehow. I guess that will no longer be possible in the near future.

Re: Google Docs will now use canvas based rendering

#22

Post by gardaani »

mekkkkkk wrote: post #14
jerry1979 wrote: post #4

I would like to know which ui library they use.

I want to say that Flutter would be a good candidate, but I don't think it's ready for this. Or is it?

Isn't Flutter intended exactly for this use case? If Google Docs won't use Flutter then I'd say Flutter has failed badly.

Re: Google Docs will now use canvas based rendering

#24

Post by LorenzA »

notyourwork wrote: post #3

I don't build extensions or work on much front end web lately but this reads like Google wants more control over their stuff. The web is becoming less open. > By moving away from HTML-based rendering to a canvas-based rendering, some Chrome extensions may not function as intended on docs.google.com and may need to be updated. > If you are building your own integrations with Google Docs, we recommend using Google Work…

in general a lot of dom-nodes can reduce performance and with canvas you have much more control over what and how things get rendered. I would assume this is also nothing new or "special" afaik google spreadsheets is using canvas for years under the hood with some dom for nicer ux

Re: Google Docs will now use canvas based rendering

#25

Post by jhartmann »

notyourwork wrote: post #3

I don't build extensions or work on much front end web lately but this reads like Google wants more control over their stuff. The web is becoming less open. > By moving away from HTML-based rendering to a canvas-based rendering, some Chrome extensions may not function as intended on docs.google.com and may need to be updated. > If you are building your own integrations with Google Docs, we recommend using Google Work…

Performance of DOM based rendering is very problematic and not unified across browser implementations. Canvas rendering will likely increase the performance of Google Docs, and make the UX more unified across platforms. Google Docs is really an application built on the web platform. HTML DOM rendering was never intended to give developers the control they need to build fully featured high performant applications, we just shoe horned things until they sort of work. I think this is a positive thing, UX will be better and the integration API's will become much cleaner and not depend on structure of how they design the UI. Concerns will be separated and the end result is something much cleaner, more performant, and more supportable.

Re: Google Docs will now use canvas based rendering

#27

Post by attilakun »

ZuLuuuuuu wrote: post #5

Maybe because I am out of loop with web development, but this sounds like a huge change to me. So instead of HTML elements, there will be just one big element, and everything will be rendered there? How will text selection work for example? Will Google Docs basically implement a GUI library like GTK, which renders everything itself, but for the web?

I'm not sure but what you are suggesting is not outside the realm of possibility. There are already projects like https://makepad.dev/ which implement their GUI on top of WebGL. (Which is arguably more challenging than implementation on top of Canvas 2D.)

Re: Google Docs will now use canvas based rendering

#28

Post by throwaway3699 »

nothis wrote: post #21
ZuLuuuuuu wrote: post #5

Maybe because I am out of loop with web development, but this sounds like a huge change to me. So instead of HTML elements, there will be just one big element, and everything will be rendered there? How will text selection work for example? Will Google Docs basically implement a GUI library like GTK, which renders everything itself, but for the web?

And it puts the entire structure behind a giant blackbox. Yucky. As if fate tries to prove a point, I recently struggled with a random ass google docs document and just wanted to download and import to use in my own spreadsheet software. There probably would have been a Google Approved way of doing it but if there was, they intentionally made it hard. I ended up copying the HTML somehow. I guess that will no longer b…

File -> Download -> XLS

Re: Google Docs will now use canvas based rendering

#29

Post by weird-eye-issue »

wlesieutre wrote: post #6

RIP web accessibility when everyone starts doing this to make ad blocking more difficult

It is an interesting possibility. Obviously people wouldn't want it to hurt their SEO (for public facing websites). However Google is okay with displaying a different page to their Googlebot (for example if you have a SPA it is okay to prerender it and display that as long as the content it the same). So if your HTML based content is the same as your canvas based content maybe Google would be fine with it and you could get both good SEO and an ad-blocker-free experience...

Re: Google Docs will now use canvas based rendering

#30

Post by lewisjoe »

We are working on a full-featured Google Docs alternative - https://writer.zoho.com . We are already capitalizing canvas technology for rendering documents across devices, except for the Web which still is DOM.

Having a single codebase that renders across all platforms is our long-term motive, and it does require rendering to a cross-platform canvas backend - like Skia.

I'm assuming Google Docs is already on that direction as well. Would be great if someone from Google can clarify the technical internals.

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