# literallycanvas/literallycanvas

A canvas in your browser. Literally.

Repository: https://github.com/literallycanvas/literallycanvas
Canonical: https://ross.abutalabs.com/products/literallycanvas
Homepage: http://www.literallycanvas.com/
Language: CoffeeScript
License: BSD-2-Clause
License Family: permissive
Topics: javascript, canvas, html, ms-paint, whiteboard, html5, drawing, paint
Archived: true
Last push: 2020-05-29T21:28:35+00:00

## Health v2 (maintenance only)
Score: 10/100 (v2, computed 2026-09-03T02:20:16.233290+00:00)
- activity 0, release rhythm 8, longevity 100
- inputs: {"age_days": 5043, "days_push": 2287, "days_rel": null, "gap_med": null, "n_releases_24m": 0}
- flags: archived
- formula: round(0.45*activity + 0.35*rhythm + 0.20*longevity); archived -> min(score, 10)

## Adoption (not part of the score)
Stars 1115, forks 315 (observed 2026-08-28T04:03:38.290150+00:00)

## What it is
Literally Canvas is an extensible, BSD-licensed HTML5 drawing widget for embedding sketching boards in web pages, with only React.js as a dependency. It provides basic drawing tools, panning/zooming, JSON save/load, and PNG/SVG export, but is no longer maintained.

## Use cases
- embed a drawing board in a web page
- let users sketch on a canvas in the browser
- build an MS Paint-like web drawing app
- save and load drawings as JSON
- export user sketches to PNG or SVG
- add custom drawing tools via an API

## When to choose
- you need a quick, simple browser-based drawing widget with JSON and image export
- you want an extensible canvas tool API and are willing to maintain your own bug fixes
- your stack already uses React and you want a drop-in drawing component

## When to avoid
- you need actively maintained software with bug fixes and support
- you need a multiuser/collaborative whiteboard
- you require modern build tooling or compatibility with recent React versions

## Facets
- artifact type: library
- maturity: abandoned
- function: ui-components, graphics
- domain: web-development, frontend, graphics
- platform: browser
- tags: html5-canvas, drawing-widget, whiteboard, ms-paint, react, unmaintained, javascript, nodejs

## Member repositories
- literallycanvas/literallycanvas (main) score 10

## Provenance
- Observed fields: from GitHub, fetched 2026-08-28T04:03:38.290150+00:00.
- Health v2: computed from the inputs above; adoption is never an input.
- Inferred fields (summary, facets, guidance): AI-extracted, prompt v1, taxonomy v1, on 2026-08-30T06:42:11.119000+00:00, confidence not recorded.
  - readme: https://github.com/literallycanvas/literallycanvas (fetched 2026-08-28T04:03:38.290150+00:00, sha 7a881f893f65)
  - homepage: http://www.literallycanvas.com/ (fetched 2026-08-29T12:46:04.556115+00:00, sha 3b189f2b9607)
  - site_page: http://literallycanvas.com/installing.html (fetched 2026-08-29T12:46:04.565090+00:00, sha 41477951c82d)
  - registry_npm: https://registry.npmjs.org/literallycanvas (fetched 2026-08-29T12:46:04.566950+00:00, sha 37f72dd7908e)
- Data as of 2026-08-30T08:39:29.467469+00:00.