What is the getCSSCanvasContext() method of an HTML5 element?

Question

What is the getCSSCanvasContext() method? I saw it in Chrome’s debuging console, but I cannot find any decent documentation for it.

Does it mean we can draw using canvas commands on any element?

Answer 1

The method is implemented in WebKit (meaning you can also use it in Safari) and returns an object that lets you draw into a CSS image. See this blog post for an example:

In the latest nightlies, you can try out a new feature: the ability to specify named image buffers in CSS and then to draw into them programmatically from JavaScript. Here’s how it works.

background: -webkit-canvas(mycanvas);

Instead of specifying an image URL, you specify a canvas and an identifier to use for that canvas. The following new API on documents can then be used to obtain a drawing context for that canvas.

CanvasRenderingContext getCSSCanvasContext(in DOMString contextType, in DOMString identifier, in long width, in long height);