Check it out. Glen, Erik and Emil have been working on implementing Canvas in Internet Explorer. Looks like that's done and now up on SourceForge: Download here. An open-source project from Google... Brilliant! I only hope it's not a cruel April Fool's Joke.

Now that all 4 major browsers (IE, Firefox 1.5, Opera 9 and Safari) can do the Canvas thing, this should lead to some really interesting times. I hope they join forces with Mark Finkle and use the same cross-browser drawing API to get SVG fully implemented in IE. Me? I'll just sit back and watch the magic happen.

§243 · March 31, 2006 · Microsoft, QuickLinks, Software, SVG, Technology, Web · Comments Off on Cross-Browser Drawing API Lands ·


Via Arve, the Opera Web Applications blog talks of how the Opera 9 Browser has made extensions to the canvas element specifically for authoring games for the browser. Read the rest of this entry ...

§242 · March 29, 2006 · Games, GDC, Opera, RIA, Software, SVG, Technology, Web · Comments Off on Opera Extends Canvas ·


We attended the third and final Web-Based Games Round Table session hosted by Brian Robbins at the GDC this morning. It was focused on the production/design aspects as opposed to the commerce and community issues of the previous two sessions. Read the rest of this entry ...

§241 · March 24, 2006 · Firefox, Games, GDC, JavaScript, Software, SVG, Technology, Web · Comments Off on GDC Trip 2006: Part Four ·


Renesis finally released their pre-alpha technical preview SVG player. My biggest complaint is that it's a standalone player that can't access the web, but I'll keep my complaints to a minimum because they've finally made good on their promises to release something. The sample SVG files that come with the player are nice, though!

On another front, Firefox's SVG Blog mentions that support for the SVG <textPath> element will likely be included in Firefox 2, which is good news. The alpha for Firefox 2 is due out next week. The earlier the better, I always say. Get it into more hands for testing. Hopefully they can also squeak in the DOM support for text that tor mentions.

Looks like the latest Opera 9 weekly build will be slightly delayed. Borg says they've made a lot of progress, hopefully this includes fixes to their proxy server issues which is preventing me from using the browser behind a firewall. We can always hope for improved SVG support too...

§237 · March 17, 2006 · Firefox, Opera, RIA, Software, SVG, Technology, Web · Comments Off on SVG News Digest: 2006-03-17 ·


I decided to take my SVG Solitaire game and make it into FreeCell, the game that comes with Microsoft Windows. Click here to play. Requires IE+ASV, Firefox 1.5 or Opera 9 TP2

It took roughly 30 minutes to change Solitaire into FreeCell, then over 1 hour to debug stupid/silly errors. I was pretty tired last night, but that's probably a pretty good breakdown of the software development process (X minutes to design/code, at least 2X to test). Of course it still probably has some minor bugs here and there (please let me know) and I know the layout could use some work. Very playable in IE+ASV, but dragging cards is still pretty slow in Firefox 1.5 and Opera 9 TP2.

CLICK HERE TO PLAY FREECELL

§232 · February 24, 2006 · Games, RIA, Software, SVG, Technology, Web · Comments Off on SVG Time Waster Game: FreeCell ·