Discover HTML5 Canvas essentials, draw shapes, delve into transformations and animations, and explore interactive applications with advanced mouse and keyboard handling. Gain insights into creating dynamic web graphics.

Kirupa is an MIT grad who works at Microsoft as Senior Program Manager. He has been tinkering with web technologies since 1998. He works on the Edge browser team where he gets to sink his teeth into the cutting-edge web technologies.

HTML5 is taking over the browsers and one of the coolest things in HTML5 is the canvas - the immediate mode drawing surface you have in HTML for bringing pixels to life using JavaScript. It is used to create games, graphs, and animations.

This is an extensive course with interactive playgrounds (so you don't have to install anything). The course can be divided into four parts.

1. Understand basics of Canvas and compare it with DOM.
2. Learn how to draw shapes.
3. Take a deep dive into canvas transformations and animations.
4. Explore advanced mouse and keyboard handling to create truly interactive applications using canvas.

If none of what I just wrote makes sense, then the content here is just what you need 😀 . Let's get started.

HTML5 Canvas: From Noob to Ninja - an interactive deep dive

So far, I've been extolling the virtues of `requestAnimationFrame` and how it can make your animations really smooth. The word **smooth** isn't really a good way to measure something. It won't hold up under scrutiny! The way we measure smoothness is by using a number you are probably very familiar with called the **frame rate**. You are probably already familiar with frames rates from watching movies or playing video games where you are told that the higher your frame rate, the better the result is. Guess what? That same holds for us in the HTML world also.

With `requestAnimationFrame`, your frame rate is typically around 60 frames per second (FPS). To repeat that differently, this means your `requestAnimationFrame` function and related code have the potential to refresh your screen 60 times every second. This number wasn't arbitrarily chosen. It is the upper limit on how quickly your laptop screen, computer monitor, phone display, etc. can physically update your screen.

>#### Your Frame Rate May Go Lower than 60 FPS
>If your animation loop is very complex and does a lot of work or your browser is swamped with other things, your frame rate will be lower than 60 frames per second. In general, your browser will do the right thing to ensure your animation is extremely smooth, but be prepared for some random slowdowns.

Now, there will be times when you may want to deliberately slow your animation down. You may not need your animation loop getting called 60 times every second. If you want to throttle your animation's speed, you can do something like the following:

DOM vs. Canvas

Getting Started with the Canvas

Drawing Basics / Lines

Drawing Curves

Drawing Multiple Things

Drawing Rectangles (and Squares)

Drawing Triangles

Drawing Circles

Modifying How Your Corners Look

Working with Colors

Drawing Text

Drawing Images

Canvas Transformations

Structuring Your Drawing Code

Animating with requestAnimationFrame

Creating Animations on the Canvas

Animating Many Things on the Canvas

Creating Motion Trails

Creating Sprite Animations

Working With the Mouse

Follow the Mouse Cursor

Mouse Follow with Ease

Working With the Keyboard

Moving Shapes Using the Keyboard

Resizing the HTML Canvas Element

Detect Whether a Font is Installed

Your Frame Rate