Author: Roy Selig, Architect - Oracle Applications User Experience
In Part 1 of this blog entry, I wrote about HTML Canvas, a browser tag that enables a vector-based drawing surface and that doesn't require a browser plug-in. Apple introduced HTML Canvas four years ago, and it has been receiving a groundswell of support. Vector graphics are a powerful tool in the Web application designer's toolkit. Vector graphics enable you to show rich user interface (UI) visualizations in a lightweight manner.
In Part 2. I discuss some of the catalysts that could fuel widespread adoption and continued evolution of HTML Canvas.
It's always difficult to predict the tipping points for new technologies. If you subscribe to Malcom Gladwell's theories on social epidemics, you've no doubt heard of the three types of people that he considers influential: connectors, mavens, and salespeople. In brief, connectors know a lot of people, mavens know a lot of things, and salespeople know a lot about people. Each has the power to influence what the rest of us do
It would appear to me that HTML Canvas is entering into the hands of all three types of people. Here's how:
The Mavens: These are the Web developers. They've known about Canvas for awhile, but now they are able to exercise that knowledge, because:
· Firefox, Opera, and Safari browsers all support the HTML Canvas tag.
· Google has enabled a fairly robust emulation of Canvas for Internet Explorer.
Canvas is on its way to becoming a standard, as it is part of the HTML 5 working spec that the W3C has adopted as a starting point for the next version of HTML.
The Connectors: I count the technical bloggers and the Javascript framework developers among these folks.
· In the past couple of years, blogs such as Ajaxian.com and TechCrunch.com have started tracking noteworthy applications of Canvas. The number of examples cited is increasing.
· Javascript frameworks, small APIs that simplify and extend client-side scripting, are enjoying a viral adoption of their own. In addition, members of these framework communities have written wrappers for Canvas, making it easier for others to implement solutions using Canvas.
The Salespeople: In this case, these are the Apple iPhone users.
· The iPhone has a vocal, influential following that has grown to over one million since the iPhone's debut in June 2007.
· iPhone users are hungry for applications that run on the phone, and developers are seeking opportunities to deliver those applications.
· Many developers are trying to match the innovative tweening of the native iPhone touch interface in their Web applications. Ordinarily they might turn to Flash to push, spin, or flip their UI elements, but Safari on iPhone doesn't support the plug-in. So developers are looking closely at Canvas, which Safari does support.
What will be the effect of all of these influences on Canvas adoption? So far, it's unclear. It could remain just a cool technology and never evolve into a viral one. Then again, it could spark interest in a standards-based approach to richer UI in the browser, which in turn might impede broader adoption of Adobe AIR and Microsoft Silverlight.
I feel that this choice (between a Web-based standards approach and proprietary solutions that dispense with the browser) will pose a real conundrum for Oracle customers in the future. This is why we track this issue as closely as we do. To clarify, rich UI has its benefits to user productivity and decision-making. But so does the semantic Web. Ask yourself how valuable a tool Google Search would be if most Web content sat within beautifully rendered, unparseable Flash files.
That's why I think Canvas is worth keeping an eye on.
If there is any great threat to the widespread adoption and evolution of Canvas, it's the action taken by Apple legal in March 2007. They essentially exercised their IP rights over Canvas, leaving developers to wonder what, if any, licensing issues might ensue. Historically, the licensing burden for such things has fallen on the browser makers themselves. Since Mozilla is open source, Opera is a free browser, and IE is not playing right now, it's not clear what license revenue Apple stands to gain. It may just be their way of solidifying their ownership and making concrete their desire to steer its continued design.
I'm collecting interesting examples of HTML Canvas. Here are a few: Reproducing Apple's cover-flow visual style creating a javascript-based hyperbolic tree enabling a front-end to Web apps running on iPhones and Yahoo Pipes: RSS Feed Aggregator.
It's worth noting that just a year ago, if you asked a front-end engineer to develop some of these UIs, their tools of choice would have been Flash or Sun's Java.
