HTML5 canvas for interactive demos?

[nipponese]

I'm being asked to take some courses in order to train myself to create some interactive demos utilizing the keyboard. My intuition is to re-tool my Flash skills, but learning how to use HTML5 canvas + javascript seems like the more progressive way to go. Any thoughts?

[spmorr02]

If you are only looking for only keyboard interaction then I would think that canvas would suit your needs well. It really depends on what you are trying to demonstrate.

If your looking to impress visually I'm sure the effects from flash would be more impressive, part of canvas' wow is in the fact that anything you'd make would be native (no plugins, not counting IE).

[zcorpan]

If your looking to impress visually I'm sure the effects from flash would be more impressive

Why?

[spmorr02]

Well like I said it really depends on the complexity of the demos but if they are fairly extensive then there are many things which flash still excels in when compared to canvas.

But the OP should really check out http://www.canvasdemos.com/ and http://www.chromeexperiments.com/ (among others) to see for themselves whats possible.

[zcorpan]

Well like I said it really depends on the complexity of the demos but if they are fairly extensive then there are many things which flash still excels in when compared to canvas.

Could you list some of those things, please? (I don't know much about Flash so I don't know what it does better.)

Reportedly Flash has better performance than canvas, but canvas (and SVG) should catch up when browsers get hardware accelerated rendering. I think Flash also supports 3d, but then so does canvas (with the WebGL rendering context).

[spmorr02]

Well I am by no means a Flash expert so I will say what I hear from users most often.

Some advantages Flash has over Canvas:
Clipping and redrawing - Flash gives you much more predefined control where you're building from the ground up with Canvas. Many libraries are springing up to try and take care of this problem
Embedded Font Support - Font Support in Canvas at least in the recent past has been spotty at best
Built-in Multiline Text Wrap - This could appear in Canvas very soon
HTML Fragment Rendering - As could this as it is already in the spec
Sound and Video - Flash is still the clear winner here and was largely what I was referring to in my original post.

Still I'm currently using nothing but Canvas and SVG for my projects. Because nothing beats 'native'.