Rhino Canvas

Rhino What?!

Rhino Canvas is an implementation of the WHATWG Canvas API for the Rhino Javascript engine. The original purpose was to experiment with drawString() implementations for the Canvas element, in particular for a J2ME implementation. However, it may also be useful for some other stuff:

• Do graphics in Javascript in a non-proprietary way
• Experiment with the Canvas API without needing a browser (and a dummy HTML page).
• Give kids something to play with that is not tied to windows.
• Support the Canvas API (for standalone applications such as games) in browsers that do not support the Canvas element (Samples).

The project contains a minimal IDE that permits to conviniently edit and run Javascript applications.

Project News

2006-12-07

Applet implementation, samples page added.

2006-11-19

drawString() bugfixes, some more samples added, some code cleanup.

2006-11-11

drawString()-support added. Used to replace document access in Chris Malcom's breakout sample.

Installation and Download

If you do not have a Java Runtime installed already, please download and install it from http://www.java.com/en/download/

1. Download and unzip the latest Rhino Canvas ZIP file (rhino-canvas-ide-<version>.zip) from the Sourceforge download page.
2. Start the IDE by double-clicking the .jar file in the extracted directory.

The samples contained in the subdirectory samples can be opened and started directly from the IDE.

For the source code, please refer to the sourceforge CVS download instructions. Rhino Canvas is licensed under the GPL.

Help!

There are several open issues:

• The logo could be improved
• The Rhino debugger needs to be integrated with the IDE
• A watchdog thread that is able to interrupt the interpreter is needed. All timer based calls run in the AWT event handling queue to simplify graphics synchronization, so an infinite loop in a callback is fatal for the whole environment

Any help is welcome! Please use the resources available at the Sourceforge project page.

Components

Rhino Canvas takes advantage of several other open source projects:

Rhino Javascript Interpreter Batik AWT Extensions UJAC-UI Editor Component Examples from the great Mozilla Canvas tutorial

Imprint: (c) 2006 Stefan Haustein, Rolandstr. 27, 46045 Oberhausen, Germany