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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

#121

Post by 0xcoffee »

onion2k wrote: post #104
nothis wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

And it puts the entire structure behind a giant blackbox. Yucky. Technically, sure, but the reality is that very few people are interacting directly with the HTML content of a Google Doc. What it does behind the scenes is really only relevant to the developers working on the app.

Well it also breaks all context menu functionality. No more right click -> copy text unless the website specifically implements it. Any custom context menu you use is now useless.

Personally I always use 'Right click -> Search..'

Re: Google Docs will now use canvas based rendering

#122

Post by richardwhiuk »

thayne wrote: post #79
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…

> Can I use Open Office across OSes? I would recommend Libreoffice over Openoffice, but yes (for both) And you can of course backup to your cloud service of choice. The main benefit of google docs, o365, etc. Is real-time collaboration. But there is no reason why a desktop app couldn't support realtime collaboration with a suitable backend service.

There are lots of reasons.

Re: Google Docs will now use canvas based rendering

#123

Post by pjmlp »

silicon2401 wrote: post #64
hctaw wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Microsoft Word, Pages and Open Office don't seem to be bottlenecked by rendering performance like Google Docs. Perhaps the browser is the wrong platform for document editing.

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…

Maybe an heresy around here, Microsoft Office with SharePoint backed server.

Re: Google Docs will now use canvas based rendering

#124

Post by tomjen3 »

hctaw wrote: post #43
jhartmann wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Microsoft Word, Pages and Open Office don't seem to be bottlenecked by rendering performance like Google Docs. Perhaps the browser is the wrong platform for document editing.

Google docs is worth it for the coorporation, but if you are writting for yourself, or anything seriously it is simply not good enough, but I don't think the performance is the issue.

Re: Google Docs will now use canvas based rendering

#125

Post by blacktriangle »

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…

It's not about the web being more or less open, it's about the browser playing the role of a distributed application run time. I'd argue that Google Docs is basically not a part of the web, it just incidentally happens to run in the same browser as the web does for logistic reasons.

Re: Google Docs will now use canvas based rendering

#126

Post by MaxBarraclough »

Jaygles wrote: post #73
jcelerier wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The dom is really, really fast, no, it is barely tolerable. Web apps in 2021 have trouble reaching the UI performance (latency) of early 2000 desktop software.

Looking at the DOM in isolation, its pretty quick. The primary reason web apps are slow is because the business logic is typically un-optimized. I've encountered a web app that persisted its state by stringifying it and putting it into localStorage with every UI change. The resulting string was ~5MB and took 200-300ms each time (freezing the UI) on my tablet. I've encountered an app that used an in-house built chart…

> The primary reason web apps are slow is because the business logic is typically un-optimized.

This crops up a lot, shifting the blame from the web technologies to the developers who target those technologies, but where are the exceptions? What's the best example of a large, complex, efficient and responsive web-based application? It's easy to give examples of tragically inefficient and unresponsive web-based applications (Teams, Slack), but no one ever seems able to give a counterexample.

Pinboard and Hacker News are fast and efficient precisely because they make minimal 'application-like' use of the web platform.

Visual Studio Code is generally pretty responsive, but if I understand correctly there's little question that it uses vastly more computational resources than if it had been built using a 'conventional' (non-web-based) GUI toolkit.

Re: Google Docs will now use canvas based rendering

#127

Post by kroltan »

jerry1979 wrote: post #51
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…

I would not consider myself super deep in web technology, but rendering to canvas allows programmers to have pixel perfect control over the look of their applications across all devices. Currently, web developers need to "reset" lots of default rendering behaviors in every major browser to ensure that their applications look the same. After building lots of specialized UI components within the HTML standard, a progra…

> [...] rendering to canvas allows programmers to have pixel perfect control over the look of their applications across all devices.

Canvas-based fingerprinting due to rendering differences is a thing, so using the canvas is not pixel-perfect either.

Creating an UI library atop of that is a lot of work, though to be fair certainly manageable by Google. Remember, a UI library is not just about putting things on the screen, but sanely defining layouts, interactions, accessibility...

> Specifically, lots of specialized applications have UI components which do not have a corresponding HTML standard

I think that is the entire point behind Web Components [0], and if one really really don't want more DOM elements for their visuals, then the CSS Paint API and in fact the whole Houdini initiative [1] should be pursued instead, at least at the Google scale.

Besides these technical points, interoperability should be considered. Web browsers do a lot of work to match user expectations in behaviour to their native operating systems, as well as web conventions. (The classic example infractions being: links that cannot be control-clicked or middle-clicked to open on new tabs because they are not actual links but elements with click handlers; or not being able to scroll with page up/down, arrows, or middle-click, because the page reimplements scrolling in an unsemantic way)

Making your own UI toolkit is bound to all those problems, and those are user-facing problems that will affect the often-ignored long tail of users with unconventional setups.

Look at Flutter for Web, for example [2], it definitely feels entirely different from a regular website, even if it were to look the same. The scrolling does not respect my system settings, interaction is limited to only the most-common method, image scaling is subtly different.

And as Google observed themselves, extensibility and the user-agent should be considered before making such a decision, but it appears they consider it a liability in detriment of the user.

[0]: https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/Web_Components [1]: https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/Houdini [2]: https://gallery.flutter.dev/

Re: Google Docs will now use canvas based rendering

#128

Post by pjmlp »

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?

Basically yes, for example

https://platform.uno/

Re: Google Docs will now use canvas based rendering

#130

Post by pjmlp »

o_m wrote: post #35
wlesieutre wrote: post #6

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

They won't be able to sell the service in Europe if they ignore web accessibility. The US also have similar laws, or at least people can sue a company if they don't meet the accessibility requirements.

In almost 30 years of experience, I only had one project where that was actually a requirement, as it was a government agency.

Sadly most don't really care, and unless it is something like government it isn't enforced.

Also here in Europe we aren't as happy to go to court like in US.

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