csswg-drafts VS Scrawl-canvas

For more background, and some detailed discussion of the opposite argument ("display: masonry" over "display:grid"+"grid-template-rows: masonry") see https://github.com/w3c/csswg-drafts/issues/9041

The tracking issue: https://github.com/w3c/csswg-drafts/issues/8659

As noted there, okHSL/HSV keeps the perceptual uniformity by removing some peaks beyond the geometric limit of HSL/HSV, and it is unclear whether it is what users do expect or not.

The idea is that you should be able to set accent color via accent-color CSS property. It is discussed that there should be access to the color value of this property, e.g. via AccentColor or AccentColorText.

What do you mean by "official documentation"? The specification [1]? MDN [2]?

[1] https://drafts.csswg.org/

[2] https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/CSS

The former is not meant as a learning resource for new web devs and the latter usually has information about the "baseline" support ond browser compatibility tables.

The link corresponding to the actual submission title (“CSS WG resolved to officially work on native custom functions and mixins”):

https://github.com/w3c/csswg-drafts/issues/9350#issuecomment...

> RESOLVED: Start ED of css-mixins for CSS Custom Functions and Mixins

Recently I was reading the Learn CSS the pedantic way book and the definition for inline boxes did not match the way that anonymous block boxes were generated when an inline-level element had a block-level element as its child. So I went looking elsewhere for a more appropriate definition for that case and found this issue on standards: https://github.com/w3c/csswg-drafts/issues/1477 It was really interesting to know that I was not the only one confused. My question was: Does the inline-box generated by the inline-level element contains the box generated by the block-level child or there wasn't an inline-box that was a parent of them all but there were 2 siblings inline-level boxes of the block-level box that were wrapped in another anonymous block boxes? Reading that issue I got to know the concept of fragments, which I did not know browsers had. But the issue seems to suggest that the box tree for this case should have the inline-box as being a parent of the block-box. Which led me to another question, in that case, if I apply a border to the parent inline-level element, shouldn't it apply to the overall box that is generated (it does not)? The answer is that borders between block-boxes and inline-level boxes should not intersect but that is really difficult to derive from reading the standards alone. Anyway it was headache-inducing trying to learn the box-model pedantically :)

With all the recent CSS improvements I still miss the possibility to have working transition to "height:auto". The issue [1] on csswg-drafts is the most upvoted one. At least we can now use css grid and track sizes transitions, but it's far from intuitive, transition for "height:auto" should just work.

[1]: https://github.com/w3c/csswg-drafts/issues/626

Masonry isn’t ready to be shipped as there are still quite a few open spec issues [^1] that need to be resolved first.

[^1]: https://github.com/w3c/csswg-drafts/issues?q=is%3Aissue+is%3...

the irc log is here: https://github.com/w3c/csswg-drafts/issues/7542#issuecomment...

i had the same reaction, it seems like a very weird syntax. but after reading the discussion i get it: you're telling a form field to behave like a normal html element, instead of behaving like a form field.

I don't like Typescript because it forces me to think about types and data structures and stuff. Which is a Good Thing because I absolutely have to think about that stuff when working on large codebases with a team of colleagues: without the inline documentation and text editor help TS gives me when working on those codebases I'd be (at least!) 10x slower when refactoring old code or adding new code. And nobody wants to pay a slow developer!

However ... the one place I refuse to use Typescript is in my side project - a JS canvas library. I can justify this because: 1. it's a big codebase, but I know every line of it intimately having spent the last 10 years (re-)writing it; 2. nobody else contributes (and I kinda like it that way); and 3. I keep a close eye on competing canvas libraries and I've watched several of them go through the immense (frustrating!) work of converting their codebases to TS over the past few years and, seriously, I don't need that pain in my not-paid-for life.

Even so, I do maintain a .d.ts file for the library's 'API' (the functions devs would use when building a canvas using my library) because the testing, documentation and autocompletion help it offers is too useful to ignore. It is additional work, but it's just one file[1] and I can live with that.

[1] https://github.com/KaliedaRik/Scrawl-canvas/blob/v8/source/s...

> working with glyphs and iterating them in reverse for RTL is brain-breaking. And line wrapping gets really complicated. It's also the most obscure because nobody has written down everything you need to know in one place

I can confirm this. I've been working on a (much simpler!) text layout engine for my canvas library over the past couple of months and the amount of complexity associated with just stamping some glyphs onto a canvas has left me screaming at my laptop on an almost daily basis. Getting a decent underline was a proud moment!

Question: did you ever find out what algorithm the various browsers are using to calculate how many words can fit on a given line? I'm almost there, except words will occasionally jump between lines when I scale the text. Really annoying!

The PR's still a work in progress, but I've got all the functionality I want in there (shaping lines to fit in non-rectangular containers, styling text, text along a non-straight line, dynamic updates, etc). Just need to test and document it all now ... https://github.com/KaliedaRik/Scrawl-canvas/pull/75

I've got myself organised and prepared a List Of Things To Do[1] to make my 2D Javascript library even better than it already is. Given that I've been working on the library for over 10 years now, and have never before set out such a list, I call this Progress!

[1] https://github.com/KaliedaRik/Scrawl-canvas/discussions/cate...

'Kay, I don't know if this anywhere close to what the OP wants, but this sort of live browser tab manipulation is possible to do using a mix of a a canvas element and the browser's Screen Capture API[1] (plus my JS canvas library, once I merge and publish the changes into its next release[2]).

This solution[3] shows the modified browser tab in a separate browser tab. I've got no idea whether it's possible to do the same sort of trick in the same tab (but probably not). I also have no idea how secure the Screen Capture API is - I'd get very nervous about doing this sort of thing when looking at my bank's online portal!

[1] https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/API/Screen_Capt...

[2] https://github.com/KaliedaRik/Scrawl-canvas/pull/57

[3] Youtube video of the effect: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hCi6LmKMAo0

My canvas library's README[1] has a video embedded in it. FWIW I'm not convinced it adds anything to the library's sales pitch.

[1] https://github.com/KaliedaRik/Scrawl-canvas

> And I’m just mentioning some of the unfixable problems with this approach

I agree that using a canvas instead of leveraging existing accessibility supplied by HTML/CSS/JS and the DOM is an accessibility nightmare.

However, I disagree that canvas accessibility issues are "unfixable". Difficult? Yes. But not unfixable. In my view, the element works best in partnership with its wider environment (HTML/CSS/JS and the DOM), not as a replacement for it. With that in mind, we can start to tackle the accessibility issues you raise - fonts, links, interactions, etc.[1][2]

I have an ambition to one day become intelligent enough to understand/code in Rust, and I'm really glad to see that people are thinking about accessibility as a fundamental part of UIs being developed in Rust.

[1] - Which is what my JS 2d canvas library tries to do: https://scrawl-v8.rikweb.org.uk/

[2] - My thoughts on accessibility, and how I try to fix them using my library: https://scrawl-v8.rikweb.org.uk/learn/eleventh-lesson/

If, however, your company is set on this course, I very strongly suggest you use a canvas library - if only for the MVP. Here's my canvas library (spam alert!) ... even if you don't use it in your product, the library might help give you some ideas on how to overcome some of the responsive, interactive and accessibility issues you'll be facing.

Scrawl-canvas - example and another example (links to code at bottom of each page)