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Re: [Public WebGL] getContext multiple context language

On 2/2/2010 2:31 PM, Kenneth Russell wrote:
On Wed, Jan 27, 2010 at 3:22 PM, Vladimir Vukicevic
<vladimir@mozilla.com> wrote:
Ok, here's the compromise language... on subsequent calls to getContext()
for the same context, attrs must be either unspecified (in which case you
get what's there), or if given, must be compatible with what's already
active (or you get a hard error).

     - Vlad

object getContext(in DOMString contextId, in optional any attributes)

A canvas may be rendered to using one or more contexts, each named by a
string context ID.  For each canvas, there is a set of zero or more active
contexts.  The getContext() method is used to obtain a particular rendering
context for the canvas.

'contextId' must be a string naming a canvas rendering context to be
returned.  For example, this specification defines the '2d' context, which,
if requested, will return either a reference to an object implementing
CanvasRenderingContext2D or null, if a 2D context cannot be created at this
time.  Other specifications may define their own contexts, which would
return different objects.

If getContext() is called with a context ID that the implementation does not
support, it must return null.

For supported context IDs, the getContext() method behaves differently
depending on whether the requested context ID is already an active context
for the canvas.

If there are no active contexts for the canvas, the implementation should
attempt to create the specified context for the canvas.

If there are one or more active contexts and a context ID that is not
currently active is requested, it is up to the implementation to determine
whether the requested context can be used simultaneously with all currently
active canvas contexts.  If simultaneous rendering with the requested
context is not possible, getContext() must return null.  Otherwise the
implementation should attempt to create the specified context for the
canvas.

If a new context is to be created, the optional 'attributes' parameter must
be either unspecified or an object specific to the context being requested.
An unspecified value indicates a default set of attributes, as defined by
the context. Unknown attributes should be ignored by the context.

If a new context is successfully created, a reference to an object
implementing the context API is returned and the new context is added to the
list of active contexts for the canvas.

If a context ID that is already an active context for the canvas is
requested, then if the optional 'attributes' parameter is unspecified, a
reference to the existing context object must be returned.  If the
'attributes' parameter is specified, the context must determine whether the
given set of attributes is compatible with the attributes set when the
context was created.  If the attributes are compatible, the existing context
object must be returned.  If the attributes are not compatible, getContext()
must raise an INVALID_STATE_ERR exception.

If multiple rendering contexts are active, they all render to the same
canvas bitmap; they are not layered or otherwise isolated. Changes made to
the canvas bitmap with one context must be immediately visible to any other
active contexts on the canvas. It is up to the implementation to manage
synchronization issues associated with rendering with different contexts to
the same canvas.
Sorry for not replying earlier.

I don't think the results of last week's conference call are captured
in the text above, so here is a concrete example of why I think the
context attributes should always be treated as a hint, and why the
getContext() call should not throw an exception for incompatible
attributes.

Yep, my bad -- I didn't get a chance to fiddle with this some more since the last call.

If the call to getContext() can throw an exception, and you combine
multiple WebGL libraries that request incompatible attributes, then
each library needs to write code like this:

   var attrs = { ... };
   var canvas = ...;
   var gl;
   try {
     gl = canvas.getContext("webgl", attrs);
   } catch (e) {
     gl = canvas.getContext("webgl");
   }
   if (!attrsAreSufficient(gl.getContextAttributes())) {
     throw "The GL context was created with incompatible attributes";
   }

If we specify instead that getContext() will always return a context
object if multiple contexts are supported by the implementation, then
the code is simplified to this:

   var attrs = { ... };
   var canvas = ...;
   var gl = canvas.getContext("webgl", attrs);
   if (!attrsAreSufficient(gl.getContextAttributes())) {
     throw "The GL context was created with incompatible attributes";
   }

Basically, libraries requesting specific attributes will always need
to check to see whether or not they can work with the attributes that
may have been set up by another library. While I understand the desire
to fail early and fast, in this case doing so only adds burden to the
programmer. Note that the verification logic is the same in the two
versions above; the second one simply has fewer lines of boilerplate
code around it.

Also, there will be context attribute permutations that can not be
supported by any current FBO-based WebGL implementation, such as
"depth=false stencil=true". Rather than throw exceptions in these
cases, I think it is better to create the context with the closest
compatible set of attributes. The distinction is similar to the
differences in behavior between GLX and WGL/CGL (Mac OS X). GLX's
fail-fast visual and FBConfig selection behavior is more precise, but
is also more difficult to program to.

I'm slowly coming around to this; I still don't really like it, but I don't see a way around it... forcing the author to write the code in your first example doesn't seem too bad, but I also can't convince myself that there's any benefit to them doing so. There are really two separate problems that we're dealing with, which is initial context creation and subsequent context getting. One disadvantage of this approach is that if your app/library can handle two different paths, but they're distinct (e.g. maybe one with stencil and no depth buffer, and the other with a depth buffer and no stencil), you have no way of requesting the other if the first fails. I guess in that case you'd request both stencil and depth though, so maybe that's not an issue as long as developers always request the union of their needed features.

What do others think of this? That is, specifically making the context attributes entirely optional and ignorable by getContext, which should always return either null if the context isn't supported at all or a context object?

    - Vlad

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