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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

#471

Post by SavantIdiot »

vagrantJin wrote: post #438
bri3d wrote: post #378

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A million times this - having worked in this space, nobody wants to do this. I understand the cynicism, but the affordances provided by the browser for things like accessibility are very painful to give up. This isn't some dark pattern attempt to cut out whatever "openness" remains on the web, or to convert the browser into a display-streaming client for some sinister DRM reason. In my past job, we rewrote our spread…

The dom isn't trash. Its good enough. We just need to stop making it do things it wasn't supposed to. That's why things like electron make sense a little bit. Not perfect but sensible.

People are trying to make DOM be a WYSWIG text editor. You're point is dead on.

The response is to write an opaque, vendor-specific "DOM". Which is the complete opposite of what HTML was supposed to be. But the browser is now a platform and not a browser, so the metaphors are horribly mixed to the point where I'm not even sure what a DOM is supposed to be anymore.

Re: Google Docs will now use canvas based rendering

#472

Post by nindalf »

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.

Or we could take a look at the example Google Doc linked in TFA - https://docs.google.com/document/d/1N1XaAI4ZlCUHNWJBXJUBFjxS...

Seems like it's fast (on my machine at least), can select text and Ctrl+F works. I totally understand the urge to complain and doom say, but could we at least stick to the example at hand? I'm sure if you went through this doc you'd find things to complain about. That would be more relevant to the discussion.

Re: Google Docs will now use canvas based rendering

#473

Post by gentleman11 »

livre wrote: post #267
RhodesianHunter wrote: post #244

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

I don't, we are going to have hundreds of different accessibility and IME implementations, all with different quirks and bugs and many websites won't care at all so even writing letters with accents will be a hassle (if possible at all). Or think about websites assuming your keyboard layout is US QWERTY. Or websites not properly handling subpixel rendering or retina displays (and looking upscaled and blurry). Those a…

It’s not like the w3c provides us all with rendering engines. We still use browsers which do it for us. If these canvas techs spread, everyone will rely on canvas framework toolkits that do it for them. Still not great for user power

Re: Google Docs will now use canvas based rendering

#474

Post by kbenson »

pmontra wrote: post #429
kmeisthax wrote: post #377

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Furthermore, actually implementing your own text renderer and input engine in WASM is a different horrible nightmare, because you've now forfitted any chance of supporting IMEs (e.g. touch keyboards, pinyin/romaji/kanji input, iPadOS Scribble), you need to implement your own text selection inputs, your text won't show up in the accessibility tree, and you can't copy-paste without additional, browser-specific tweaks.…

> you can't copy-paste without additional, browser-specific tweaks Expect an AI-based OCR browser extension to copy text to the system clipboard. Possibly by sending screenshots to some centralized service ;-)

This would be more funny if it was less prescient.

Re: Google Docs will now use canvas based rendering

#475

Post by davidgay »

fmakunbound wrote: post #407
fulafel wrote: post #396

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The copy and paste problem is sidestepped in android by the os native ocr, it might become common elsewhere too.

I can’t tell if you’re being facetious. Text is rendered to a canvas frame buffer and then the solution to text selection involves OCR?

Amusingly, the Amiga lacked cut&paste support in most applications, so someone developed a tool that did precisely that.

Leading to questions like this: http://forum.amiga.org/index.php?topic=10580.0

Re: Google Docs will now use canvas based rendering

#476

Post by vkou »

pwdisswordfish8 wrote: post #415
vkou wrote: post #395

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Documents are the quintessential use case for the Web, full stop In 1996, yes. And you can still use the Web that way. Nobody's stopping you. Much of the Web is still used that way, and that's not going to change. But in 2021, the web serves documents, and applications. And HTML/CSS was never intended as a way to build applications . It's why people came up with Flash, Java Applets, ActiveX, and all that other shit…

This is not a response to the point being made at the point where the quoted text originates, even though superficially it looks like it is. Please re-read the comment you're responding to.

Actually, it responds to the entire[1] train of thought that follows that statement. Please re-read what I am saying, and consider it in context. You are suggesting that Google work on updating the standards to make their desired use case work better. I am suggesting that Google's desired use case will never be served by document-oriented standards, and that is why it shouldn't mess with those standards.

Again, the world would not be better off if ActiveX were rolled into web standards back in the oughts.

Leave document standards responsible for displaying documents, and don't let the needs of application people get in the way of that.

[1] Well, I don't respond to your point that Google Docs is intended to display documents - because, as another commenter points out, it's incredibly obvious that its most important function is to edit documents.

Re: Google Docs will now use canvas based rendering

#478

Post by jamiek88 »

breck wrote: post #443
bri3d wrote: post #378

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A million times this - having worked in this space, nobody wants to do this. I understand the cynicism, but the affordances provided by the browser for things like accessibility are very painful to give up. This isn't some dark pattern attempt to cut out whatever "openness" remains on the web, or to convert the browser into a display-streaming client for some sinister DRM reason. In my past job, we rewrote our spread…

> The way to fix this trend would be to reimagine the presentation layer of the browser as something other than a stack of hacks over hypertext, but so far nobody seems to have a good solution. About a decade ago I had the start of a Eureka moment on how to do this (back then — https://medium.com/space-net/spacenet-51aca95d49a2 , nowadays https://treenotation.org/ ). It seems to me we've missed a sort of fundamental…

Wow that tree notation looks super interesting!

Bookmarked for a later in-depth read but my interest is piqued!

Re: Google Docs will now use canvas based rendering

#479

Post by deeter72 »

withinboredom wrote: post #386
EvanAnderson wrote: post #311

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The WASM code will eventually implement its own DNS analog (or use DoH with a pinned certificate). It'll all be completely opaque TLS to your Pi Hole. Your Pi Hole is the same thing, functionally, as the tools a nation state hostile to human rights uses to filter the Internet. You'll get the same treatment that they do.

That’s when you install squid and have it do the terminating TLS. They won’t pin the certs, too many corps do this already and not to mention certificate lifetime is in the realm of leaving a browser open for weeks.

Deploying squid is not simple as deploying a PiHole.

Re: Google Docs will now use canvas based rendering

#480

Post by closeparen »

nindalf wrote: post #453
vagrantJin wrote: post #438

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The dom isn't trash. Its good enough. We just need to stop making it do things it wasn't supposed to. That's why things like electron make sense a little bit. Not perfect but sensible.

> We just need to stop making it do things it wasn't supposed to This is a thread about Google Docs. Your suggestion to the Docs team is to ... stop? Just shut down their product?

Just send LibreOffice files as attachments via your personal email server, what’s the problem?

/s

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