What the hell is a <canvas>? How do I use it? Why do I want to use it? What is so great about it?

I have had no idea, so I decided to find out.

With my recent kick on finding out everything I possibly can about html5, this is one part of it that has been implemented in a few of the more popular browsers, and actually has some use. By definition:

The tag defines graphic, such as graphs or other images. The tag is new in HTML 5

That seemed 100% pointless to me, until I learned more. The idea of this element, is to provide a container for graphics, and to use a script to actually print the graphics to the screen. What that means is… dynamic graphics in your webpage without the need for Flash, Java, or Silverlight (shudder) . This is my dream come true. Here is a great example of a real life example: http://canvaspaint.org/, and here is a page with a few basic “how to’s” to understand the <canvas> element better: http://labs.mininova.org/canvas/

Supported Browsers:

• Mozilla Firefox 1.5+
• Opera 9.5+
• Safari 3.x
• IE8beta1

Edit: Damn RSS feeds and wordpress titles… If I put <canvas> in the title, the browser sees it as a tag. If I put &lt;canvas&gt; in the title, then the rss feed sees it as a tag. C’mon people… this tag arrived in 2004…