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Discussion Sentiment

75% Positive

Analyzed from 880 words in the discussion.

Trending Topics

#canvas#google#https#html#web#com#chrome#mozilla#browser#standard

Discussion (27 Comments)Read Original on HackerNews

Barbing1 day ago
Tried this demo in Safari: https://arrival.space/htmlcanvas

Looks very cool, and showed a pretty message indicating there's even more:

  HTML IN CANVAS NOT SUPPORTED  
  Use Chrome and enable chrome://flags/#canvas-draw-element
Use Chrome... idontthinkiwill.jpg and aren't we supposed to reject these technologies that allow Google to Embrace, Extend, Extinguish[1]?

Kudos to the artist in spite of this unfortunately esoteric (wish it weren't) concern

[1](hope I'm wrong about it being a triple E https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Embrace,_extend,_and_extinguis... )

rafram1 day ago
The standardization process requires implementations before standardization. And the most recent comments on the WHATWG issue are from Jake Archibald (Mozilla) and Anne van Kesteren (Apple). This isn't a unilateral Google project.
Barbingabout 19 hours ago
Thank you! Did you see the pushback from Mozilla? (downthread - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48208340 )

Given the David & Goliath nature I'd be bending over backwards to avoid situations where I get that kind of pushback, but I may be so utterly out of touch with the reality of how it "has to" be (and then I'm very optimistic that it could still be better).

Maybe this could've been deprioritized until succeeding on other features and learning each other more through that process, then coming to the table with an excellent first draft Mozilla only has polish to add (not fundamental disagreements).

troupoabout 5 hours ago
> This isn't a unilateral Google project.

I can list dozens of unilateral Google projects that are pushed under the guise of "standardization" and then released despite no consensus or against explicit objections from other browser vendors.

And this feature? It's literally pushed by Google unilaterally.

afavour1 day ago
> aren't we supposed to reject these technologies that allow Google to Embrace, Extend, Extinguish

In what way is this technology a means to embrace, extend and extinguish?

This seems like a logical extension of existing web APIs. If we reject everything out of hand then the platform won't improve. It's going through the standards process:

https://github.com/whatwg/html/issues/10650

socalgal21 day ago
Seems like you have some pretty strong ranty bias there.

AFAICT, this is a web standard and expected to get buy in from Safari and Firefox before shipping to users. For now it's an experiment you have to specifically enable with flags. No different than any other browser that runs experiments

Here's one from from Apple from 2017

https://webkit.org/blog/7504/webgpu-prototype-and-demos/

Here's another from last year

https://webkit.org/blog/17118/a-step-into-the-spatial-web-th...

JimDabell1 day ago
> AFAICT, this is a web standard and expected to get buy in from Safari and Firefox before shipping to users.

If it hasn’t already got buy in then it isn’t a web standard, it’s just a Google proposal. Something isn’t automatically a web standard just because Google thinks it’s a good idea.

Here are Mozilla and WebKit positions on this:

> This proposal attempts to solve multiple problems with a single solution. We (Mozilla) recognize the motivation for solving some of the problems, but believe that this is not the right solution to each problem, or in some case a step in the wrong direction.

https://github.com/mozilla/standards-positions/issues/1076

https://github.com/WebKit/standards-positions/issues/630

As far as I can see, nobody outside of Google has committed to implementing this.

Barbing1 day ago
What a thread (Mozilla). Thank you much.

> If this ships, this is what we think we'll be facing, but in reverse. Your rendering would become the defacto default. Does this help see where we're coming from?

One side cares about a private, free, open web; the other devs made something COOL and potentially USEFUL (ship it!). Both highly intelligent of course, shockingly different priorities.

troupo1 day ago
From the discussion linked in the Webkit repo:

--- start quote ---

Philip: First, google slides is written in svg, so that won't change with this. But google docs is using canvas, so they might be a candidate. … they might want to integrate this peicemeal, this API allows them to start to adopt the feature slowly,

--- end quote ---

This reads to me like "Google Docs decided to go with canvas sometime ago [1], found it to be too hard, so pushed Chrome to have a way to support HTML in Canvas. The rest is just post-hoc justifications"

[1] https://workspaceupdates.googleblog.com/2021/05/Google-Docs-...

Barbing1 day ago
Strongly ranty!

Happy to praise anything good Google does (speedy, reliable YouTube delivery). When they don’t get buy in first, I’m suspicious. They know, but should also care about how bad it is for the web for sites to dictate the browsers we use.

troupo1 day ago
> his is a web standard and expected to get buy in from Safari and Firefox before shipping to users.

1. It's not a standard. It's a scribble on a napkin in a working group's repo: https://github.com/WICG/html-in-canvas Created and edited by people from Google.

2. Chrome continuously ships "standards" like this that they create with no buy in and against any and all opposition.

3. Neither of your links have any relation to HTML in Canvas.

designerarvid1 day ago
HTML-in-Canvas-in-HTML. Yo dawg.
BobbyTables21 day ago
Nah, you forgot the canvas.

I heard you like html-in-canvas demos, but what about canvas-in-html-in-canvas-in-html?

ivolimmen1 day ago
You broke the internet!
BobbyTables21 day ago
Title should have been “html-in-canvas demos in gif on X”

I naively thought the “demo” was a demo, not a X posting by a twit.

Barbing1 day ago
cush1 day ago
Wes isn’t a twit!
phyzix57611 day ago
I remember this repo a few weeks ago: https://github.com/remotion-dev/html-in-canvas

I wonder if it works in more than just Chrome Canary now.

Rygian1 day ago
How long until a canvas is used to render the full chrome of a web browser (e.g. including the TLS padlock), showing a fake benign URL in the (fake) address bar while having the user interact with a malicious page?
stanac1 day ago
That's why we have "youtube.com is now full screen" message.
lukan1 day ago
Yes, but this "emergency" UI of the OS could be improved I think. (Also that functionality could have been build easily with normal DOM and JS, cancel and override all events, etc)
l23k41 day ago
Already done, it's called a "browser-in-browser" attack.
beezlewax1 day ago
Flash is back baby!
troupo1 day ago
In a significantly reduced, dumbed down and non-functional way
RecycledEleabout 18 hours ago
I had to poke around a little to learn this:

"The HTML-in-Canvas API lets you draw DOM content directly into a <canvas> or a WebGL and WebGPU texture while keeping the UI interactable, accessible, and hooked up to your favorite browser features."

RecycledEleabout 18 hours ago
The word "Canvas" is overloaded in that it can mean dozens of different things. I thought you meant the recently hacked learning management system (LMS) at first.