Google Docs will now use canvas based rendering

Post by duxup » Wed, May 12, 2021, 3:03 PM UTC

dahfizz wrote: post #177

pdkl95 wrote: post #99

Ever since WebAssembly was first introduced, I thought it was obvious[1][2] that the end game for those that want to control the web is sending opaque binary blobs of code that only use the browser for the canvas tag's framebuffer. Font rendering and layout can all easily be accomplished by embedding libraries like freetype. This breaks all forms of user control - like ad blockers - and turns the web back into cable…

Yet another reason to use Pi-hole. The web browser is the wrong place to try and fight against this sort of thing. Secure your home network once instead of fighting an arms race on each device you have.

Post by dahfizz » Wed, May 12, 2021, 3:04 PM UTC

rektide wrote: post #163

pdkl95 wrote: post #99

Ever since WebAssembly was first introduced, I thought it was obvious[1][2] that the end game for those that want to control the web is sending opaque binary blobs of code that only use the browser for the canvas tag's framebuffer. Font rendering and layout can all easily be accomplished by embedding libraries like freetype. This breaks all forms of user control - like ad blockers - and turns the web back into cable…

Treating the web browser like a VNC terminal, a way to push pixels, is just a vile degredation of the web. The web is not applications. People view the web via a user-agent, a tool that let's them navigate & view hypertext as they want. Breaking away from hypertext, pushing images in people's faces: it's not the web. It's an assault, a great step backwards. It's an attack on the internet. Absolutely people are defini…

Post by hajile » Wed, May 12, 2021, 3:05 PM UTC

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?

Post by chadlavi » Wed, May 12, 2021, 3:05 PM UTC

Post by woah » Wed, May 12, 2021, 3:06 PM UTC

shadowgovt wrote: post #149

disease wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Here's an article that talks about the switch to canvas for VS Code. The "5 to 45" times faster part really sticks out to me. Kind of surprised it took Google this long to do this with Docs. https://code.visualstudio.com/blogs/2017/10/03/terminal-rend...

> Kind of surprised I'd assume a significant cost-benefit tradeoff. For all its flaws, the DOM rendering algorithm is at least "document-like," so there's a lot of wheel-reinventing to do going from just using the DOM to a custom document layout implementation underpinning a canvas-targeted rendering algorithm.