First Look: Blossom - A SproutCore Spinoff Using Only HTML5 Canvas For Rendering
1–10 of 25 posts
Re: First Look: Blossom - A SproutCore Spinoff Using Only HTML5 Canvas For Rendering
#2Does this scare anyone else, at least just a little bit?
It seems so odd to me that now Flash is being de-emphasized, we're picking it up all over again. Yes, there are some performance benefits and cross-platform problems you can jump over... but isn't this just a proprietary, non-standards way to approach web design all over again?
Re: First Look: Blossom - A SproutCore Spinoff Using Only HTML5 Canvas For Rendering
#3Does this scare anyone else, at least just a little bit? It seems so odd to me that now Flash is being de-emphasized, we're picking it up all over again. Yes, there are some performance benefits and cross-platform problems you can jump over... but isn't this just a proprietary, non-standards way to approach web design all over again?
Except it's entirely standards based. Canvas is part of HTML5 and the apps are built entirely in JavaScript. And the whole framework is open source with no proprietary components. Not sure how you got to those conclusions.
Re: First Look: Blossom - A SproutCore Spinoff Using Only HTML5 Canvas For Rendering
#4Does this scare anyone else, at least just a little bit? It seems so odd to me that now Flash is being de-emphasized, we're picking it up all over again. Yes, there are some performance benefits and cross-platform problems you can jump over... but isn't this just a proprietary, non-standards way to approach web design all over again?
Except it's entirely standards based. Canvas is part of HTML5 and the apps are built entirely in JavaScript. And the whole framework is open source with no proprietary components. Not sure how you got to those conclusions.
I don't mean to overreact, but so were and , which were what Flash used. If they're creating their own canvas-based way of rendering a UI, it's not really using HTML5... it's just that HTML5 happens to be the container.
And just because it's open source, doesn't mean it's standards-based.
I'll have to dig deeper, but things like "HTML and CSS independent" feel very proprietary to me. It just feels like you're losing out on the shared semantic value of HTML, etc.
Re: First Look: Blossom - A SproutCore Spinoff Using Only HTML5 Canvas For Rendering
#5Does this scare anyone else, at least just a little bit? It seems so odd to me that now Flash is being de-emphasized, we're picking it up all over again. Yes, there are some performance benefits and cross-platform problems you can jump over... but isn't this just a proprietary, non-standards way to approach web design all over again?
Yes. I share your concerns. This attitude that HTML and CSS and browser UI somehow need to be replaced by a custom layer of JavaScript ultimately is a slippery slope towards things like applets and swfs... towards a byte-code compiled web. See also: Native SDK.
We've got all these mechanisms built up to deal with web UI that is constructed with HTML and CSS in terms of accessibility, in terms of search indexing, in terms of browser plugins and extensions, in terms of web services and bookmarklets, in terms of UI debugging... Also, the web UI you get with HTML and CSS inherits a bunch of standard behaviors and defaults that make for more consistent experience from site to site. Consistency in UI mental models is a great thing.
I can't think of a single argument FOR this idea of rendering UI entirely in canvas that shouldn't instead be met with a response of "so lets make HTML and CSS better!" Instead of improving the open standards of HTML/CSS, people are pushing towards proprietary solutions.
Sometimes even the best intentions can go awry. I don't think this is malice so much as ignorance.
Re: First Look: Blossom - A SproutCore Spinoff Using Only HTML5 Canvas For Rendering
#6Earlier quoted context omitted.
Except it's entirely standards based. Canvas is part of HTML5 and the apps are built entirely in JavaScript. And the whole framework is open source with no proprietary components. Not sure how you got to those conclusions.
I don't mean to overreact, but so were and , which were what Flash used. If they're creating their own canvas-based way of rendering a UI, it's not really using HTML5... it's just that HTML5 happens to be the container. And just because it's open source, doesn't mean it's standards-based. I'll have to dig deeper, but things like "HTML and CSS independent" feel very proprietary to me. It just feels like you're losing…
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 where semantics don't really mean anything anyway. And like I said in my article, accessibility is taken care of.
Re: First Look: Blossom - A SproutCore Spinoff Using Only HTML5 Canvas For Rendering
#7Does this scare anyone else, at least just a little bit? It seems so odd to me that now Flash is being de-emphasized, we're picking it up all over again. Yes, there are some performance benefits and cross-platform problems you can jump over... but isn't this just a proprietary, non-standards way to approach web design all over again?
Yes. I share your concerns. This attitude that HTML and CSS and browser UI somehow need to be replaced by a custom layer of JavaScript ultimately is a slippery slope towards things like applets and swfs... towards a byte-code compiled web. See also: Native SDK. We've got all these mechanisms built up to deal with web UI that is constructed with HTML and CSS in terms of accessibility, in terms of search indexing, in t…
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 issues that CSS is plagued with. I don't get why people are so attached to HTML and CSS.
Re: First Look: Blossom - A SproutCore Spinoff Using Only HTML5 Canvas For Rendering
#8Earlier quoted context omitted.
I don't mean to overreact, but so were and , which were what Flash used. If they're creating their own canvas-based way of rendering a UI, it's not really using HTML5... it's just that HTML5 happens to be the container. And just because it's open source, doesn't mean it's standards-based. I'll have to dig deeper, but things like "HTML and CSS independent" feel very proprietary to me. It just feels like you're losing…
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.
Re: First Look: Blossom - A SproutCore Spinoff Using Only HTML5 Canvas For Rendering
#9Earlier quoted context omitted.
Yes. I share your concerns. This attitude that HTML and CSS and browser UI somehow need to be replaced by a custom layer of JavaScript ultimately is a slippery slope towards things like applets and swfs... towards a byte-code compiled web. See also: Native SDK. We've got all these mechanisms built up to deal with web UI that is constructed with HTML and CSS in terms of accessibility, in terms of search indexing, in t…
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 because UI designers can skin software built by JS programmers by tweaking a CSS file without having to know any JS. I'm attached to HTML and CSS because the web is HTML and CSS.
Re: First Look: Blossom - A SproutCore Spinoff Using Only HTML5 Canvas For Rendering
#10Until 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 why it's terrible. The canvas approach is an almost pure abstraction, and should be explored thoroughly.