#WAY TOO OFTEN

[beardedmrbean]

This one is legit if anyone was curious

[snakebites-and-ink]

Me: I should work on my WIP!

Me to me: Start a new one instead

[so-long-soldier28]

do you ever look through your ao3 and think, i can’t believe i posted that on the internet

[akaluan]

Hey, that stuff about Google Docs you just shared would be VERY helpful to share with some people I know but do you happen to know of any sources I can link about it besides your post? (No worries if that is not possible, but my search attempts are probably not using the right keywords and I'm coming up blank.)

Good search terms are "Google documents canvas" and "Google doc canvas implementation" although you'll need to skip past mentions of Canvas The Product.

Here's an opinion piece by someone at Zapier about what Google's changed, in layman speak, and why it is (theoretically) a good idea. https://zapier.com/blog/google-docs-canvas-based-rendering/

Realistically I do somewhat agree, but also I will argue that there IS no way to entirely unify the way things display... If you're talking about using different browsers. Because Firefox renders canvas slightly different from how chrome does, and things will never one hundred percent agree. But different computers all using chrome? Yeah, things will render very close to identically.

On the other hand. This change broke 90% or more of BROWSER extensions (not add-ons, which are like extensions for just gdocs/Gmail/etc) that tried to interact with gdocs. Many that still work only work on chrome. Of those that do, many of THOSE only work on editable Google docs, even if they're just an accessibility extension to read websites aloud.

So most of the points I listed past number one are merely things I've found while working with the code itself. However! Here's one of the initial documents that Google released about the update to canvas:

https://workspaceupdates.googleblog.com/2021/05/Google-Docs-Canvas-Based-Rendering-Update.html?m=1

Note that they say that SUPPORTED assistive tech will be unaffected, which means tech implementations that they approve for use. Specifically, it requires getting access to the API, and also they're talking about Add Ons, not browser extensions, which need to access a different API. I work for a pretty large education based company, and we were denied our request to access specific features that would allow us to Just Work As Usual, so I had to work around their switch to canvas in order to enable our specific features in Google docs.

And no one say anything about Grammarly still working on gdocs in both Firefox and chrome. You know why? Because I figured out my work around trick from examining THEIR implementation. Which doesn't use any API access (which thus means no Google integration is required to use their software) and thus works on both editable and uneditable documents. (Okay, so Grammarly doesn't APPEAR to work on uneditable documents but that's just because the coders told it not to. After all, why make grammar suggestions on a document you can't edit?)

Most of my points (the rebuilding of the canvas, how often it happens, etc) are only visible when I add debugging statements in my specific code, which lets me see otherwise "invisible" interactions happening beneath the hood.

You can see the use of four canvas with your own eyes, though! And it's actually pretty fascinating to watch the html move. If you want to see that bit, in your browser of choice, navigate to a Google doc (not a spreadsheet, a document) of your choice, and open the Inspector

(Chrome and Firefox: press Ctrl+shift+i )

Now click on the element picker icon in the corner of the inspector panel that came up

(it looks like this:

And hover your mouse over the Google document you're viewing. You should see part of the page highlight a light blue. Aim for the page of the document (so where the text is) and you should see a popup that reads something like "canvas.kix-canvas-tile-content" which is what we're aiming for! Click to confirm, and look back over at the inspector window you opened in the first step. Make sure you're viewing Elements -- these are the raw html components of the page you're viewing.

This is an example of the element inspector panel on Chrome.

Now, you don't need to know tooooo much about html to follow what's next. Clicking on the canvas when in selection mode should have highlighted a line in the inspector panel that should start with something like "<canvas class="kix-canvas-tile-content"" that's the actual canvas that Google is drawing on to produce your text document.

Now, right above it should be another line that starts with "<div class="kix-page-paginated"" along with a little down arrow next to it. This is the containing element that holds the canvas in a proper place, and you should see several divs with kix-page-paginated as their class. Pay attention to these divs specifically. Now start slowly scrolling down the page and watch the inspector panel. Note how after a point there's a flash and the z-index tag on the div changes? That's Google rebuilding the canvas inside that div to be a different page. Google lists pages starting from index 0, so what we would call page 1 is actually z-index 0, but otherwise it's the same. If you hover your mouse over the html element in the inspector, you'll see the element's location on the screen -- do this with a page outside of view, and watch how when the index changes, the location the div points to changes too!

Again, this part of the changes really isn't a problem, it's just a Fascinating Implementation that amuses me to play with.

[citadelofswords]

i try not to be a word choice pedant but i think there are certain times where people are using words incorrectly and i think one of the more egregious examples of this is how and why people describe something as "infamous"

[zydraholic]

Everybobby wanna be my ebeny 😔

oooh the treachery... every single person wants to BEEE... my enemy... ee... eee... ee e...

[heirofnepeta]

Mmmm gotta love getting up to fast and immediately collapsing because of whats probably an iron deficiency.

[attakkreload]

dylan klebold would’ve posted sad bart simpson edits on his story

[nimeve]

why do i always forget about my anxiety meds?

[inkskinned]

having good & true friends will literally save and protect you in a million unfathomable ways. like okay we have written so many times about lovers. but the way a platonic friend laughs and cries with you. the way they hold your hand at 14 years old and at 34. the way they keep a little silver tie to you, touching base over and over and over. how you can go years without talking, only to re-meet and discover: oh shit! you're still cool!

there are people who have been in my life for more than half of it, and i have loved every version of them. do you know how fucking beautiful that is. yeah love will save the world. but the way friends love you is gonna save the you.

[cinnabeat]

i need to invest in an electric sharpener holy shit

[aropride]

looks at the ethics board with my big wide autistic eyes and they say fineee you can do human experiments and i say YAYYY :3 !!!!!!!

[chloesimaginationthings]

How helpy tested out the FNAF pizza sim attractions

[ionomycin]

heartblood

[dilfsisko]

i feel like people often equate spice tolerance with spice enjoyment. Like not being able to exactly handle spicy foods does NOT mean i won't continue to seek them out. I will simply suffer for my enjoyment of food.

[dreamcatcheresss]

Even in the bathroom.