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Comment by nothis | Hacker News Reader

And it puts the entire structure behind a giant blackbox. Yucky.

As if fate tries to prove a point, I recently struggled with a random ass google docs document and just wanted to download and import to use in my own spreadsheet software. There probably would have been a Google Approved way of doing it but if there was, they intentionally made it hard. I ended up copying the HTML somehow. I guess that will no longer be possible in the near future.

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And it puts the entire structure behind a giant blackbox. Yucky.

Technically, sure, but the reality is that very few people are interacting directly with the HTML content of a Google Doc. What it does behind the scenes is really only relevant to the developers working on the app.

Well it also breaks all context menu functionality. No more right click -> copy text unless the website specifically implements it. Any custom context menu you use is now useless.

Personally I always use 'Right click -> Search..'

I think we can assume that Google Docs will implement right click -> copy text.

... in gray.

File -> Download -> XLS

... which is a menu item you can reach through the canvas rendered by a giant blob of non-free JS.

Or through scripting

Assuming they allow you programmatic access to the elements inside their binary blob rendered in the canvas. My bet is they won't.

They couldn't stop you: either the interaction is handled in JS (in which case you can programmatically call the JS) or it is handled in WASM (in which case the interaction is actually still handled in JS, and exposed WASM functions are called).

In neither case can programmability be blocked.

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