Google Chrome introduces HTML-in-Canvas API and soft navigation web vitals

Google has announced significant updates to the Chrome browser aimed at improving web development and performance measurement. Chrome 157 marks the stable release of the HTML-in-Canvas API, which allows developers to integrate interactive Document Object Model (DOM) elements directly within 2D, WebGL, and WebGPU canvas contexts. This API seeks to bridge the gap between high-performance GPU-accelerated graphics and the accessibility and built-in browser features of standard HTML elements.

Additionally, Chrome has implemented the ability to report web vitals for soft navigations. While traditional web vitals like Largest Contentful Paint (LCP), Cumulative Layout Shift (CLS), and Interaction to Next Paint (INP) primarily measured hard navigations, they previously left much of the user journey in single-page applications (SPAs) unmeasured. JavaScript SDKs version 11 now capture these metrics for soft navigations, allowing developers to optimize performance for users navigating through applications via the History or Navigation APIs.