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Flipboard releases React Canvas

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Re: Flipboard releases React Canvas

#91

Post by DennisP »

mjjohnston wrote: post #79
greggman wrote: post #52

If rendering UI to a canvas fits your needs then by all means do it. Just be aware that when it comes time to localize to other languages it starts getting hard to support things like CJK where in order to properly work there's an Input Method Editor ( http://i.imgur.com/JmmYwyi.gif ) that needs to be able to read the text. There's also cut/copy/paste which users can't do from text on a canvas. There's also "define"…

React Canvas author here. I outlined some of the reasons why it is not always the right answer: http://engineering.flipboard.com/2015/02/mobile-web/#Practic... On Flipboard we use DOM where appropriate for text input and areas of the application where performance is less critical. And to your point about accessibility: https://github.com/flipboard/react-canvas#accessibility You are correct that the DOM just works. Bu…

Do you think it'd work well to use your component as the start of a canvas-based text editor?

Re: Flipboard releases React Canvas

#92

Post by miguelrochefort »

danabramov wrote: post #4

Oh my, it is beautiful on the inside. Check out the source. They're totally showing off the power of React component model even when it doesn't render directly to DOM tree: https://github.com/Flipboard/react-canvas/blob/master/lib/Su... It's about describing nested side effects in time, really.

Can you point out to what exactly is notable about this code? I don't see anything special.

Re: Flipboard releases React Canvas

#93

Post by Touche »

mjjohnston wrote: post #79
greggman wrote: post #52

If rendering UI to a canvas fits your needs then by all means do it. Just be aware that when it comes time to localize to other languages it starts getting hard to support things like CJK where in order to properly work there's an Input Method Editor ( http://i.imgur.com/JmmYwyi.gif ) that needs to be able to read the text. There's also cut/copy/paste which users can't do from text on a canvas. There's also "define"…

React Canvas author here. I outlined some of the reasons why it is not always the right answer: http://engineering.flipboard.com/2015/02/mobile-web/#Practic... On Flipboard we use DOM where appropriate for text input and areas of the application where performance is less critical. And to your point about accessibility: https://github.com/flipboard/react-canvas#accessibility You are correct that the DOM just works. Bu…

> But we need a better option on the web in order to achieve the kinds of experiences that people have come to expect from native applications.

I think this is a really cool project and a technical achievement, but I disagree with this one statement. We don't actually need to "achieve the kinds of experiences". This is my biggest problem with designers I've encountered, they do not see the benefits of the platform and try to design everything the same way. The web has distinct advantages that makes it special and I think way too much effort is put into making it behave like native applications (trying to catch up to its benefits rather than leaning on the web's).

Re: Flipboard releases React Canvas

#94

Post by shadowmint »

Touche wrote: post #93
mjjohnston wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

React Canvas author here. I outlined some of the reasons why it is not always the right answer: http://engineering.flipboard.com/2015/02/mobile-web/#Practic... On Flipboard we use DOM where appropriate for text input and areas of the application where performance is less critical. And to your point about accessibility: https://github.com/flipboard/react-canvas#accessibility You are correct that the DOM just works. Bu…

> But we need a better option on the web in order to achieve the kinds of experiences that people have come to expect from native applications. I think this is a really cool project and a technical achievement, but I disagree with this one statement. We don't actually need to "achieve the kinds of experiences". This is my biggest problem with designers I've encountered, they do not see the benefits of the platform an…

...but apps are better, and people like them.

Thats bad for the web ecosystem in general. We want the web to be the place people go for content instead of native walled gardens.

Great user experiences make that happen.

Rubbish user experiences that look and feel like a lame 2nd cousin to native apps actively harm the web ecosystem (look at mobile facebook; lots of people just use the app and dont even use the browser on their phone)

Re: Flipboard releases React Canvas

#95

Post by driverdan »

supercoder wrote: post #58
vowelless wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have generally done systems and backend work, so usually C/C++/Go/Python. React is making me extremely excited to do some frontend work! Is React a good introduction to the land of frontend programming? Or do I first need to familiarize myself with vanilla JS and go bottom up to React?

There's no need to go deep diving on learning JavaScript. As you're using a high level framework, you're interacting with that more than the details of JavaScript. So in essence you're learning 'React' not 'JavaScript'. So just start building in React and the JS will come along naturally.

That's not really true. You really need to understand JS to work with React, especially since you need to combine it with other libs since it's only the view layer.

Re: Flipboard releases React Canvas

#96

Post by ajacksified »

Touche wrote: post #93
mjjohnston wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

React Canvas author here. I outlined some of the reasons why it is not always the right answer: http://engineering.flipboard.com/2015/02/mobile-web/#Practic... On Flipboard we use DOM where appropriate for text input and areas of the application where performance is less critical. And to your point about accessibility: https://github.com/flipboard/react-canvas#accessibility You are correct that the DOM just works. Bu…

> But we need a better option on the web in order to achieve the kinds of experiences that people have come to expect from native applications. I think this is a really cool project and a technical achievement, but I disagree with this one statement. We don't actually need to "achieve the kinds of experiences". This is my biggest problem with designers I've encountered, they do not see the benefits of the platform an…

You're entirely on point. This loses touch with the platform; one wouldn't use Material design in an iOS app and expect as much success as a more native experience, and vice versa; the same works for the web. It's a different platform with different goals and expectations.

Also, hey everyone, before you downvote the parent, please recall this article that you voted so highly just a few weeks ago, and consider its implications on building a web ui on top of canvas: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8965048

Re: Flipboard releases React Canvas

#97

Post by [deleted] »

jt2190 wrote: post #53
stoikerty wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is a video that describes "Immediate-Mode Graphical User Interfaces" really well, see: https://twitter.com/stoikerty/status/467047333453381632 There is also a lengthy and insightful blog-post about the subject where I found the video: http://jlongster.com/Removing-User-Interface-Complexity,-or-...

Video is here: http://mollyrocket.com/861

[deleted]

Re: Flipboard releases React Canvas

#99

Post by 2bit »

mjjohnston wrote: post #90
danabramov wrote: post #4

Oh my, it is beautiful on the inside. Check out the source. They're totally showing off the power of React component model even when it doesn't render directly to DOM tree: https://github.com/Flipboard/react-canvas/blob/master/lib/Su... It's about describing nested side effects in time, really.

It's worth mentioning that much of the code that integrates with React internals is based on the work in react-art: https://github.com/reactjs/react-art This is the same technique used by Netflix for their React-based television UI. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eNC0mRYGWgc

Is this faster than the react-art canvas renderer? Why use one vs the other?

Re: Flipboard releases React Canvas

#100

Post by azakai »

mjjohnston wrote: post #79
greggman wrote: post #52

If rendering UI to a canvas fits your needs then by all means do it. Just be aware that when it comes time to localize to other languages it starts getting hard to support things like CJK where in order to properly work there's an Input Method Editor ( http://i.imgur.com/JmmYwyi.gif ) that needs to be able to read the text. There's also cut/copy/paste which users can't do from text on a canvas. There's also "define"…

React Canvas author here. I outlined some of the reasons why it is not always the right answer: http://engineering.flipboard.com/2015/02/mobile-web/#Practic... On Flipboard we use DOM where appropriate for text input and areas of the application where performance is less critical. And to your point about accessibility: https://github.com/flipboard/react-canvas#accessibility You are correct that the DOM just works. Bu…

Hey, just wanted to say thanks for working on and open sourcing this project. It's amazing!

> But we need a better option on the web in order to achieve the kinds of experiences that people have come to expect from native applications.

I agree, and I think you are actually doing this in a way that can work (unlike some other attempts in this space).

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