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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

#251

Post by highwind »

throwaway894345 wrote: post #100
silicon2401 wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I believe this 100%. After using google office for years (just because it's free and cloud-based), I recently tried MS Word and Excel recently at work. The different was mind-blowing. I forgot just how functional and straightforward MS Office is compared to the clunky, barebones google options. If I wanted a desktop-first, cloud-backed solution, what would be the most future-proof and durable? Can I use Open Office a…

I also prefer desktop-first, cloud-backed solutions, but I have quite the opposite experience. Working with MS Office has been a pain and I've been a happy Google Docs user for about 10 years. My wife who isn't an especially technical person also finds Google Docs quite a lot more intuitive and laments when she has to use MS Office products for work (she is a consultant for Microsoft including their 365 line of busin…

What makes Google Docs a better product than MS Office? Can you provide some examples of features that are better in Google Docs?

Re: Google Docs will now use canvas based rendering

#252

Post by e3bc54b2 »

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.

When ad blocking on web becomes impossible/nonviable, I will retreat from using it, as I have retreated from using most popular sites, unless absolutely.

I already don't have a TV, don't have any news apps on my phone, don't have any newspaper subscription, and I find that all the important news find their way to me no problem. I will add large degree of WWW to it and be mostly fine.

Re: Google Docs will now use canvas based rendering

#253

Post by andrewingram »

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 uses canvas to render the document, just not for the editor UI.

Re: Google Docs will now use canvas based rendering

#254

Post by nine_k »

ballenf wrote: post #174
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…

WASM plus encryption will mean it could be illegal to decrypt/alter website code just like a Netflix video stream. Adblock criminalization is close.

Adblock / pihole technical impossibility, too.

Re: Google Docs will now use canvas based rendering

#255

Post by falcolas »

RhodesianHunter wrote: post #244
iandanforth wrote: post #165

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

HTML and CSS are fantastic; when used what they were designed for. Document markup and display. I blame webapp developers for the scope creep and subsequent denigration of a perfectly reasonable set of standards.

Re: Google Docs will now use canvas based rendering

#256

Post by jerf »

weird-eye-issue wrote: post #29
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 cou…

That's a good point. It's not clear how to square the circle of making your content sufficiently accessible that it can be indexed by Google properly, but ad blockers can't get a grip on it. I'm not saying it's impossible, but it's not clear. Any website that wants to go to 100% pure WASM canvas code is going to have serious problems with getting indexed properly. Anything they do to scramble ad blockers will scramble the indexing as well.

It makes sense for google docs because the contents of the documents shouldn't be indexed (mostly). And of course there's the special case here of Google having both the document and the web engine so they'll always be able to index the public documents, even if nobody else can. (I'll pencil in the antitrust hearings for this for 2027 or so.)

Re: Google Docs will now use canvas based rendering

#257

Post by ape4 »

stefan_ wrote: post #237
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…

This is what Flutter on the web is, by the way. You can try it out here: https://gallery.flutter.dev/#/ and marvel at the impossible to select text, one of the many affordances violently excised here. If it wasn't still incredibly slow even on a cutting-edge Zen3, Nvidia 3070 system they might almost be on to something here.

A dystopia. You can't control-F in the page. Can't copy and paste a word you don't know into a translator or dictionary. Can't share text unofficially - like copy a sentence into a email, etc.

Re: Google Docs will now use canvas based rendering

#258

Post by gnicholas »

I give the gdocs team credit for reaching out to developers of Chrome extensions that may be affected. My accessibility Chrome extension [1] will be broken by this change, and I reported this when asked by the gdocs team a couple months back.

I don't know if feedback from my company and others might sway this decision, or if it's set in stone (it's kind of weird to ask for feedback on something that has already been fully decided). I also don't know if they'll be providing more details regarding the timing of the rollout, which seems important since this will break third-party products.

1: https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/beeline-reader/ifj...

Re: Google Docs will now use canvas based rendering

#259

Post by adkadskhj »

bruce343434 wrote: post #245
asciimov wrote: post #209

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

I think they're implying DRM laws associated with the data-streaming.

Re: Google Docs will now use canvas based rendering

#260

Post by neurostimulant »

jpeter wrote: post #204
easton wrote: post #19

Example doc: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1N1XaAI4ZlCUHNWJBXJUBFjxS...

Even has fake text search. Not bad.

Browser's built-in search feature (e.g. "find in this page..." on firefox) doesn't work though.
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