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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

#351

Post by dublinben »

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.

It's Flash websites all over again!

Re: Google Docs will now use canvas based rendering

#352

Post by Sunspark »

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.

What would you replace it with? Keeping in mind that web pages are supposed to be accessible to people in the sense that anyone with an interest to do so can put up a marked document for display because it's displaying material, not programming an interactive environment. If you take away the accessibility of HTML from people, then you're also taking away a significant portion of the "open" Internet and moving toward a more closed corporate-curated model due to the higher barriers to entry if you want to publish something.

Re: Google Docs will now use canvas based rendering

#353

Post by kejjjiee »

mihcsab wrote: post #303
stefan_ wrote: post #237

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

It`s not slow on an old intel i3 laptop and on a motorola one phone. I keep seeing these comments about flutter web with different examples, they are never slow on my old devices. Also you can make the text selectable if you want to.

You are a liar. I just tried the page and it is extremely slow. Probably another Google employee trying to protect his cash cow.

Re: Google Docs will now use canvas based rendering

#354

Post by danans »

ignoranceprior wrote: post #275
attilakun wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not sure but what you are suggesting is not outside the realm of possibility. There are already projects like https://makepad.dev/ which implement their GUI on top of WebGL. (Which is arguably more challenging than implementation on top of Canvas 2D.)

Visiting that website made my laptop's fans start running.

If you look at the bottom left of the screen, it is live compiling/rendering a 3D particle swarm animation while you edit the code, so really not so surprising that it makes the machine work a bit.

On my laptop (a Core i7 Chromebook - fast but not crazy by HN standards) the fan runs for a half second at first load - presumably during the compilation step - then shuts off immediately.

Re: Google Docs will now use canvas based rendering

#355

Post by mcherm »

dahfizz wrote: post #279
asciimov wrote: post #261

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I should have chosen my words more carefully, but the blobs with ads will have some sort of DRM on them, which is technically illegal to decrypt and cut out.

Removing DRM on something you own for personal use is perfectly legal.

> Removing DRM on something you own for personal use is perfectly legal.

Perhaps some places. In the US, it is perfectly legal to "violate" copyright restrictions for purposes like fair use. But if the data is protected by any kind of security, it is a felony to bypass that security (even for fully legal purposes).[1]

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_Millennium_Copyright_A...

Re: Google Docs will now use canvas based rendering

#356

Post by xxpor »

est31 wrote: post #116
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…

Ad blockers could still "scroll" through a website, run an AI model on it to discover the ad sections, and cut them out. Even a simple model that filters out visual animations and replaces them with a static would be useful as a large annoying component of online ads is the movement and blinking etc. that make it hard to focus on the content. Dark mode etc can, too, be implemented to work in terms of framebuffers onl…

That still defeats the purpose. I want the ads to be blocked from loading for performance reasons more than anything else.

Re: Google Docs will now use canvas based rendering

#357

Post by crb002 »

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…

JS minification is old hat, and welcome to shrink binaries.

Google for security reasons should probably release the source. Most security types welcome web-assembly over JS since there will be more Rust etc.

Re: Google Docs will now use canvas based rendering

#359

Post by Sunspark »

switch007 wrote: post #205
sgt wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a bad thing in terms of openness but a good thing in terms of performance and making web applications more like real desktop applications. A lot of DOM work is a nightmare, so I sort of welcome to the Canvas based approach.

> but a good thing in terms of performance Performance is a poison chalice. Many, many people were won over by Chrome's blistering speed. Now they won't have proper ad blocking.

I offer Firefox as the solution.

Re: Google Docs will now use canvas based rendering

#360

Post by sgt »

tengbretson wrote: post #115
sgt wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a bad thing in terms of openness but a good thing in terms of performance and making web applications more like real desktop applications. A lot of DOM work is a nightmare, so I sort of welcome to the Canvas based approach.

We're just one more concession away from getting the performance we had 20 years ago with native applications. Edit: The path we're on just seems so obvious I kind of just want to skip ahead and get it over with. - Developers and content publishers love the ergonomics and control of just shipping WASM binaries that paint to a canvas and it becomes the de facto standard. - After 2-3 years of everyone's computer being…

Funny. And then at some point someone will rediscover native apps.
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