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First Look: Blossom - A SproutCore Spinoff Using Only HTML5 Canvas For Rendering

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Re: First Look: Blossom - A SproutCore Spinoff Using Only HTML5 Canvas For Rendering

#11

Post by duckinator »

zachstronaut wrote: post #9
devongovett wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sorry, but those things are totally different. Applets and flash are plugins - proprietary additions to browsers that live in a black box. Canvas is a standard, and is part of the browser itself. HTML and CSS don't need to be replaced for most things, but this is an interesting experiment to see whether for a certain class of applications, canvas can outperform the DOM and take care of some of the cross browser issue…

I'm attached to HTML and CSS because I remember UI programming before HTML and CSS. I'm attached to HTML and CSS because of the debugging tools for HTML and CSS UI. I'm attached to HTML and CSS because it allows for bookmarklets, and screenscraping, and browser plugins/extensions. I'm attached to HTML and CSS because it creates a beautiful separation between front end and back end code. I'm attached to HTML and CSS b…

It's still an HTML document. Bookmarklets and screen scraping are most certainly doable. The latter, probably easier than it normally is. How is this presenting a problem?

Browser plugins and extensions are entirely unrelated to HTML and CSS, but if they were related it'd still be a non-issue since this is still an HTML document in a browser.

Re: First Look: Blossom - A SproutCore Spinoff Using Only HTML5 Canvas For Rendering

#12

Post by devongovett »

Me1000 wrote: post #10

Until people try building a desktop class application using te DOM, I think it's probably best for them to reserve judgement. Cappuccino and Sproutcore are the only ones who did it well (maybe Ext, but I don't know the API well enough), unfortunately it always lead to a leaky abstraction (I say that as core team member for Cappuccino). Then web developers come in and want to use their jQuery widgets, and are confused…

Right. I'm not saying it's perfect, just that it's an option worth exploring. HTML and CSS simply weren't designed for applications. They're great for documents, but it turns out that using them for this style of application ends up causing a lot of trouble later on as the applications get more complex. Abstractions can help with this, and once it is abstracted, it shouldn't really matter what the rendering backend is. Could be DOM or canvas in the browser, and as this project is showing, various native backends as well. I think that's really powerful.

Re: First Look: Blossom - A SproutCore Spinoff Using Only HTML5 Canvas For Rendering

#13

Post by duckinator »

zachstronaut wrote: post #8
devongovett wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That doesn't make any sense. Canvas is a standard maintained as part of HTML5 by the W3C. How are they "not really using HTML5"? Just because they don't have some tags? That makes no sense. The web is not HTML and CSS. People need to get over that. As for semantics and stuff, this isn't designed for documents at all, which HTML is perfectly suited for. This is designed for native-style applications in the browser whe…

The Web is HTML. HTTP is Hyper Text Transport Protocol. I think you're advocating for a JSTP that just cuts out HTML and CSS entirely. And at that point, why not just serve up compiled JS since it will be less bandwidth, right? Goodbye open web.

For compiling JS to be widely used, there has to be a decompiler or interpreter in most major browsers. It's no different than distributing binaries written in any compiled language.

How does this damage the open web?

Re: First Look: Blossom - A SproutCore Spinoff Using Only HTML5 Canvas For Rendering

#14

Post by zachstronaut »

devongovett wrote: post #12
Me1000 wrote: post #10

Until people try building a desktop class application using te DOM, I think it's probably best for them to reserve judgement. Cappuccino and Sproutcore are the only ones who did it well (maybe Ext, but I don't know the API well enough), unfortunately it always lead to a leaky abstraction (I say that as core team member for Cappuccino). Then web developers come in and want to use their jQuery widgets, and are confused…

Right. I'm not saying it's perfect, just that it's an option worth exploring. HTML and CSS simply weren't designed for applications. They're great for documents, but it turns out that using them for this style of application ends up causing a lot of trouble later on as the applications get more complex. Abstractions can help with this, and once it is abstracted, it shouldn't really matter what the rendering backend i…

When we identify places that HTML/CSS are falling short for making desktop quality applications, and we bring those issues to the standards community, and we make HTML/CSS better, then we lift up everybody's applications. We make the whole web better. Together.

If we can get missing UI features into the browser, those UI features will have native implementations and APIs, and that will give all of us free functionality and better performance.

Re: First Look: Blossom - A SproutCore Spinoff Using Only HTML5 Canvas For Rendering

#15

Post by devongovett »

zachstronaut wrote: post #14
devongovett wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Right. I'm not saying it's perfect, just that it's an option worth exploring. HTML and CSS simply weren't designed for applications. They're great for documents, but it turns out that using them for this style of application ends up causing a lot of trouble later on as the applications get more complex. Abstractions can help with this, and once it is abstracted, it shouldn't really matter what the rendering backend i…

When we identify places that HTML/CSS are falling short for making desktop quality applications, and we bring those issues to the standards community, and we make HTML/CSS better, then we lift up everybody's applications. We make the whole web better. Together. If we can get missing UI features into the browser, those UI features will have native implementations and APIs, and that will give all of us free functionali…

Yup, and canvas is just a part of that. It gives control back to the web developers and allows us to create anything we want without waiting for browser implementations. IMO, HTML and CSS are fundamentally not designed for building this kind of app, which isn't really a solvable problem without inventing something new anyway. Either that or we abstract them to make working with them easier.

Re: First Look: Blossom - A SproutCore Spinoff Using Only HTML5 Canvas For Rendering

#16

Post by zachstronaut »

devongovett wrote: post #15
zachstronaut wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When we identify places that HTML/CSS are falling short for making desktop quality applications, and we bring those issues to the standards community, and we make HTML/CSS better, then we lift up everybody's applications. We make the whole web better. Together. If we can get missing UI features into the browser, those UI features will have native implementations and APIs, and that will give all of us free functionali…

Yup, and canvas is just a part of that. It gives control back to the web developers and allows us to create anything we want without waiting for browser implementations. IMO, HTML and CSS are fundamentally not designed for building this kind of app, which isn't really a solvable problem without inventing something new anyway. Either that or we abstract them to make working with them easier.

Can you give an example of how Google Documents is falling short of being desktop class with their HTML/CSS based UI?

Re: First Look: Blossom - A SproutCore Spinoff Using Only HTML5 Canvas For Rendering

#17

Post by Me1000 »

zachstronaut wrote: post #16
devongovett wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yup, and canvas is just a part of that. It gives control back to the web developers and allows us to create anything we want without waiting for browser implementations. IMO, HTML and CSS are fundamentally not designed for building this kind of app, which isn't really a solvable problem without inventing something new anyway. Either that or we abstract them to make working with them easier.

Can you give an example of how Google Documents is falling short of being desktop class with their HTML/CSS based UI?

It's all GWT. The abstraction works there because you can't touch the DOM.

Re: First Look: Blossom - A SproutCore Spinoff Using Only HTML5 Canvas For Rendering

#18

Post by devongovett »

zachstronaut wrote: post #16
devongovett wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yup, and canvas is just a part of that. It gives control back to the web developers and allows us to create anything we want without waiting for browser implementations. IMO, HTML and CSS are fundamentally not designed for building this kind of app, which isn't really a solvable problem without inventing something new anyway. Either that or we abstract them to make working with them easier.

Can you give an example of how Google Documents is falling short of being desktop class with their HTML/CSS based UI?

Seriously? Google Docs is nothing compared to any native word processor. Just look at Apple Pages or Microsoft Word. The kinds of layouts and power you get from those tools is way beyond what anyone has ever been able to do in the browser.

Secondly, yes Google Docs uses HTML for their UI, but it's seriously abstracted I believe as Google Closure though I may be wrong. My point is that HTML and CSS can still be used, but they need abstractions for this type of app. Canvas is just another approach to the same problem.

Re: First Look: Blossom - A SproutCore Spinoff Using Only HTML5 Canvas For Rendering

#19

Post by zachstronaut »

devongovett wrote: post #18
zachstronaut wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can you give an example of how Google Documents is falling short of being desktop class with their HTML/CSS based UI?

Seriously? Google Docs is nothing compared to any native word processor. Just look at Apple Pages or Microsoft Word. The kinds of layouts and power you get from those tools is way beyond what anyone has ever been able to do in the browser. Secondly, yes Google Docs uses HTML for their UI, but it's seriously abstracted I believe as Google Closure though I may be wrong. My point is that HTML and CSS can still be used,…

Do you have links so I can check out some web based word processors that deliver more of a desktop class experience than Google Docs does? Especially one where the UI is done entirely with Canvas?

Re: First Look: Blossom - A SproutCore Spinoff Using Only HTML5 Canvas For Rendering

#20

Post by devongovett »

zachstronaut wrote: post #19
devongovett wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Seriously? Google Docs is nothing compared to any native word processor. Just look at Apple Pages or Microsoft Word. The kinds of layouts and power you get from those tools is way beyond what anyone has ever been able to do in the browser. Secondly, yes Google Docs uses HTML for their UI, but it's seriously abstracted I believe as Google Closure though I may be wrong. My point is that HTML and CSS can still be used,…

Do you have links so I can check out some web based word processors that deliver more of a desktop class experience than Google Docs does? Especially one where the UI is done entirely with Canvas?

As far as I know, no one has built that yet. But just because canvas allows a greater degree of flexibility, I think it's a worthy experiment for someone to do.
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