A Time of Great Movement

November 9th, 2006

Michael Bernstein sent me a chain of links that went from pyjamas to the pyjamas sample page on the canvas element to the canvas tutorial at Mozilla to the Mozilla animations demo page to this charming use of the canvas element.

The example just referenced doesn't use Flash. It does use one of the elements in the proposed HTML 5, input of which is being currently sought by at WaSP, 456 Berea Street and elsewhere.

This is addition to the new effort to reactivate the HTML effort in order to act as a bridge between the older HTML specifications and the newer XHTML efforts currently underway at the W3C.

Not to mention Adobe's open sourcing it's ActionScript virtual engine into the Mozilla effort, in a project called Tamarin.

So what do I think of all of this? I think it's exciting, I love the canvas element and I'm interested in many of these other innovations, it's good to revisit HTML, but I wouldn't be me if I also didn't note concerns: HTML element bloat; confusion as to direction of standards and where people should be heading; vastly incompatible web pages as browsers desperately try to keep up with all the changes; frustrated web page developers and designers also trying to keep up with changes; and a growing dominance of Mozilla/Adobe in regards to JavaScript and whether this could lead to a non-neutral ECMAScript 4.x, which does no one any good.

Still, it is nice to feel excited about web tech again. I'm not sending up fireworks, but I am pulling the end off of a Christmas cracker in celebration. Now, excuse me as I go push around that cute little blob.

Update Michael also sent me a note about this weblogger, Joshua Ellis who has started a micropatronage drive to travel to Africa. Joe Clark, from the last post. also mentions him as an example of successful micropatronage. I don't know him from Adam, but I do know Michael and Joe, so am passing on the link to the weblog. It's the FOAFy thing to do.

Besides: I want to go to Australia … someday…

Comments
1
Anne 2.0 » Blog Archive » links for 2006-11-10 - 5:32 pm 11/10/2006

[…] Mad Techie Woman ยป A Time of Great Movement typical Powers insight on HTML evolution (including a bit about Adobe) (tags: html ria adobe tamarin ecmascript) […]

2
Michael Bernstein - 11:24 pm 11/10/2006

Glad you liked the trail-o-links Shelley. I'm getting excited again too, not just by this and similar cool tech, but also by the increase in energy I am seeing in various communities I participate in (ie. Python/Zope/Plone).

BTW, the specifics of Ellis' project can be found here:
http://www.zenarchery.com/projects/doku.php?id=micropatronage:tanzania

And the results of the previous (smaller scale) project that Joe was referencing can be found here:
http://www.zenarchery.com/trinity/

3
John Dowdell - 11:11 am 11/11/2006

Hi Shelley, I think there's a way to do SVG/CANVAS work in the browsers, while not losing audience or handling a raft of changing implementations.

Make it so it renders how you wish in whichever browsers you wish, then provide a fallback to the Adobe Flash Player rendering those same tags, live. It requires a browser detection test to determine whether to show the SWF or not, but you'd probably be doing such a test anyway.

If the drawing requires JavaScript manipulation of realtime data, then you could still keep your logic in JavaScript, and just pipe the live drawing commands in to the Player… JS/plugin intercommunication is a lot better now than it was a few years ago.

There's precedent for such rendering. This way you could still use drawing tags, and keep the logic in JavaScript, but just call out to an already-available add-in renderer for non-compliant browsers. Is this area of interest to you…?

jd

4
Shelley - 12:47 pm 11/12/2006

John, thanks for the information. It is of interest, but not so much that I would implement it. I am really hesitant on using Flash for any fallback method, and would prefer to either use what would work in all my target browsers; or just not use the technique.

I know this demonstrates a bias against Flash, but I just had Amazon's little flash header take down one of older TiBooks when I accessed the site using Firefox.

And the Flash wasn't even for something particularly useful — it controlled snow falling over a penguin.

Thanks to all those who have contributed to the discussion. Comments are now closed, but you can contact the author of the post directly.

Prev: Turn the tables: Patronize Joe Clark
Next: Deja Data