Dynamic Gradient Background (Canvas)

March 16th, 2008

A really clever script here which makes use of Javascript and canvas to give dynamic gradient backgrounds.

Here is the problem: when you use the <canvas> tag to manipulate an image or a graphic, it is treated in HTML as an inline object (similar to a super-charged <img>). This means you can’t set a canvas as the background image of a <div> for example.

This script gets around this limitation by using the toDataUrl() function in canvas (supported in Firefox and Opera). toDataUrl() essentially takes the contents of a canvas and turns it into an image, which can then be made into the background of a <div>.

It sounds complicated, check out the JS source if Javascript is your preferred language as opposed to English.

I can see Reflection.js being adapted to work for background images using a similar method, but it’s likely only to work in Firefox and Opera.

Related Posts

  1. Javascript Image Effects
  2. Cross Browser Image Reflection
  3. Canvas toDataUrl()
  4. script.aculo.us reflection
  5. reflection.js demo

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