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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

#241

Post by nine_k »

The Web started as a document display and delivery framework.

Now it has turned into an application delivery framework, which uses the old document-rendering abilities to display the UI, with many quirks and workarounds, because DOM was never intended as a performant dynamic medium.

With canvas and WebGL taking more and more, it will turn back into an X terminal, with more advanced network capabilities.

If most important sites switch to canvas rendering, what used to be the browser can be radically simplified and made lightweight and much faster. The 'legacy' full-web sites can be shown using a plugin that does all the fancy and heavyweight HTML 5 and CSS 3 stuff.

Also, with webassembly running JITted platform-independent code delivered over the network, and displaying it in a platform-independent graphical client (née browser), the promise of Java from 30 years ago will finally come true — sans Java proper, though.

Re: Google Docs will now use canvas based rendering

#242

Post by chrisco255 »

spijdar wrote: post #138
EvanAnderson wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am in complete agreement. When I've brought this up on HN in the past it's always been dismissed with "But accessibility!". A big company like Google can handle that just fine. Presumably they'll eventually port Chrome to WASM. Then they can completely control the browsing experience. To exert any control over our browsing experience we'll be single-stepping thru machine code. I had fun cracking Apple II and PC sof…

> Presumably they'll eventually port Chrome to WASM. Then they can completely control the browsing experience. ...what? As opposed to shipping binary executables for an OS/arch combo, they'll ship a binary executable for WASM, and then a second binary executable for the OS? If they want to take Chrome closed source and make it fully obfuscated, they can do that already, with or without WASM. Chrome is already closed-…

Secret spyware sauce.

Re: Google Docs will now use canvas based rendering

#243

Post by vishnumohandas »

lewisjoe wrote: post #30

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 dir…

Are there plans to launch an end-to-end encrypted version of Writer?

Re: Google Docs will now use canvas based rendering

#244

Post by RhodesianHunter »

iandanforth wrote: post #165
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…

And all the problems solved by HTML and CSS will be new again, there will be many new incompatible frameworks for handling layout and styling, a blinking cursor will again take 200x the CPU it should to implement. Ugh.

I for one would welcome the death of HTML and CSS. Unfortunately I suspect they will merely be re-used for this.

Re: Google Docs will now use canvas based rendering

#245

Post by bruce343434 »

asciimov wrote: post #209
dahfizz wrote: post #177

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Pi-hole wont protect you here, they will send the entire page, ads and all as an encrypted binary blob. Decrypting it is illegal, and since the data is coming from a single source Pi-hole can't block it. Pi-hole (and ad-blocking) days are numbered. Hopefully that day is further out than I dread.

Decryption is illegal? Lol what?

Re: Google Docs will now use canvas based rendering

#246

Post by bozzcl »

asciimov wrote: post #209
dahfizz wrote: post #177

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Pi-hole wont protect you here, they will send the entire page, ads and all as an encrypted binary blob. Decrypting it is illegal, and since the data is coming from a single source Pi-hole can't block it. Pi-hole (and ad-blocking) days are numbered. Hopefully that day is further out than I dread.

Wait, how is decrypting the WASM blob illegal?

Re: Google Docs will now use canvas based rendering

#247

Post by spankalee »

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…

I don't like this change, but it's not being done to "control to web".

Re: Google Docs will now use canvas based rendering

#248

Post by guntars »

kaba0 wrote: post #189
dahfizz wrote: post #177

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

How does it help here? They can trivially include ads server-side, pi-hole would see nothing at all.

You can do it, but it’s not done commonly. The most common way ads get onto the page is by including a third party script which is easily blocked.

Re: Google Docs will now use canvas based rendering

#249

Post by leodriesch »

shaunregenbaum wrote: post #105

So Google is betting on Flutter's ethos of canvas rendering for everything. I really hope this doesn't catch on. If Figma, a design tool, doesnt need to use canvases, then neither does Google Docs.

Figma does use canvas, Framer doesn't if that's what you meant.

Re: Google Docs will now use canvas based rendering

#250

Post by neurostimulant »

neals wrote: post #23

I believe this is an example output? https://docs.google.com/document/d/1N1XaAI4ZlCUHNWJBXJUBFjxS...

Interesting. Looks like each page is a separate canvas, and the canvas are reused as you scroll the pages (just like how list view reuse cells when you scroll in a mobile app). The canvas seem to be only used for rendering text and tables though, images and graphic elements are still drawn as svg dom elements.
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