HTML5 Canvas is an element that provides the user with a workspace of a desired size for drawing. The Canvas API contains a rich set of drawing functions that can be accessed through JavaScript. The canvas element can be styled using CSS (Cascaded Style Sheet). CSS styling can improve performance and add interesting effects.
Thus, HTML5 Canvas programming can be done with the support of JavaScript and CSS.
Why HTML5 Canvas?
HTML5 Canvas is fully interactive.
Every object drawn on canvas can be animated.
Canvas is flexible enough to let you draw dynamic graphics. Also it allows adding audio and video.
All major browsers support canvas. However, the support and implementation differs from browser to browser.
It is a standard open technology.
Canvas is portable. Once created, an HTML5 Canvas application can run on almost all devices.
To develop Canvas programs you just need a code editor and a browser. You can use sublime (available on www, Text, or HTMLPad), and you can test your code on Google Chrome or Firefox. You can find sublime text at http://www.sublimetext.com/ and HTMLPad at http://www.htmlpad.net/. However, for the recipes in this book I have used Notepad.
HTML5 Canvas can be used for gaming, advertising, data representation, education and training, and art and decoration.