5/20/2026 at 4:35:44 AM
Tried this demo in Safari: https://arrival.space/htmlcanvasLooks 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
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... )
by Barbing
5/20/2026 at 2:30:47 PM
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.by rafram
5/20/2026 at 9:30:20 PM
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).
by Barbing
5/21/2026 at 10:50:15 AM
> 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.
by troupo
5/20/2026 at 2:26:54 PM
> aren't we supposed to reject these technologies that allow Google to Embrace, Extend, ExtinguishIn 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:
by afavour
5/20/2026 at 6:10:34 AM
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...
by socalgal2
5/20/2026 at 8:36:03 AM
> 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.
by JimDabell
5/20/2026 at 2:22:19 PM
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.
by Barbing
5/21/2026 at 10:43:19 AM
The other devs only care about Google and Google's own priorities: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48204981 It also helps that Google is a promotion-package-driven company.by troupo
5/20/2026 at 9:03:16 AM
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-...
by troupo
5/20/2026 at 2:10:43 PM
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.
by Barbing
5/20/2026 at 8:32:09 AM
> 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.
by troupo