Canvas

The canvas tag was introduced by Apple and has been standardized to become part of HTML5.

An example for color cycling with the canvas element

Get the canvas tag:

c=document.getElementById("c")

Get the "context" (like a paper):

p=c.getContext("2d");

Draw something!

p.fillRect(0, 0, 100, 100);

Examples

Here is a complete HTML page with a working canvas:

<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
<head>
<meta charset="utf-8" />
<script>
function draw(){
  c = document.getElementById("canvas")
  //console.log("c is",c)
  p = c.getContext("2d")
  x = 10
  while (x<300) {
    p.strokeRect(x,100,20,40)
    x+=60
  }
}
</script>
</head>
<body onload="draw()">
<h1>Hello canvas</h1>
<canvas id="canvas" width="640" height="640" style="border: 3px dotted red"></canvas>
</body>
</html>

Here's the output:

<canvas id="c1"> function draw(){

 c = document.getElementById("c1")
 //console.log("c is",c)
 p = c.getContext("2d")
 x = 10
 while (x<250) {
   p.strokeRect(x,100,20,40)
   x+=60
 }

} </canvas>

Variation: When the loop reaches the end of page it breaks the line. It redefines the "x" value to the begin of the line and adds 40px to "y".

<canvas id="c2" width="300" height="300" showsrc="true"> function draw() {

   c = document.getElementById("c2");
   p = c.getContext("2d");
   hands = 1;
   x = 20;
   y = 200;
   while (hands < 100) {
       //console.log(hands);
       p.strokeRect(x,y,20,20);
       x = x + 50;
       hands++;
       if (x > 600) {
           x = 20;
           y = y + 40;
       }
   }

} </canvas>

Tutorials & Reference