The best Canvas library

HTML5 Canvas is a powerful platform for creating beautiful web-based experiences without the need for plugins like Flash or Silverlight, and is especially attractive to anyone wanting a piece of the emerging mobile gaming market. Unfortunately, Canvas has one big problem: its API is very low-level, so if you want to use it to make the next Cut the Rope, you’re going to have to handle a lot of things like mouse/gesture tracking, collision testing, and sprite manipulation yourself.

There are a few ways around this hurdle. You could use one of the excellent open-source libraries like Fabric.js or KineticJS, which exist mostly to provide a cleaner API with some nice abstractions. Or, you could buy a commercial game engine like the highly impressive Impact. The problem with using someone else’s library, though, is that it may make assumptions that don’t meet your needs: too much structure, too little support for bitmap animation, or just naming things in a way that doesn’t fit your personal coding style.

There’s another option worth considering. Often, as you tackle a project, patterns will emerge that can be reused in the next project, and the next, and the next. Over time, you may find yourself with a robust library of code that fits your needs just right. In this session, we’ll discuss strategies for recognizing reusable patterns and pulling them into a personal “toolbelt” that can be leveraged in future projects. You may find that the best library is the one you build yourself.