Announcements

Announcements for Canvas updates, bug fixes, and new releases.

Canvas AI Elements Release

New AI elements are now available through Canvas! These elements are meant to be used for AI features and products

Sparkle Icon

A new wd-icon-sparkle.svg icon (sparkleIcon when using SystemIcon) has been released. Upgrade to @workday/canvas-system-icons-web to 3.0.19) to access the new sparkle icon.

Dragon Fruit Color

A new AI purple color, Dragon Fruit, has been added to the Canvas Tokens repository. Dragon Fruit is available as a base color token with six shade levels. To keep this color separate from the existing Canvas color palette, Dragon Fruit will use a slightly different naming convention (ex: extended-palette-dragon-fruit-100) compared to the existing Canvas base colors. Upgrade to @workday/canvas-tokens-web@1.1.0 to access the new Dragon Fruit color.

Loading Sparkle

A new Loading Sparkle component is now available in the Preview package of the Canvas Kit 10.3.0 release. This component is meant to indicate that content is currently being loaded or processed, similar to Loading Dots.

Canvas Kit 10.1.0 Release

Canvas Kit 10.1.0 is now available.

This Canvas Kit release contains the following updates:

  • Icon support for Delete buttons
  • A new Stencil utility to apply component styles

This update will not impact developers. To access these changes, please upgrade to Canvas Kit 10.1.0.

Canvas Kit v10 Release

Canvas v10 will be released on October 25th, 2023 with updates to Canvas Kit. An upgrade guide will be available once v10 goes live to assist product teams with upgrading to the newest version of Canvas.

The v10 release will focus on revamping Canvas tokens and components to support a Canvas theme, starting with Buttons! This Canvas theme will serve as the foundation for future theming work, which could include brand specific and user selected themes, like dark mode.

Release Overview

The table below contains a high-level overview of the updates that will be rolled out as part of the v10 release. The impact for developers are defined as follows:

  • None: inapplicable to the role or no actions are required for users to adopt the change; Updates will be applied automatically once users upgrade to Canvas Kit v9
  • Low: minor changes are required for users to adopt the change
  • Medium: a moderate amount of changes are required for users to adopt the change, such as switching out UI elements
  • High: a large amount of changes are required for users to adopt the change, requiring product teams to make major design or development decisions
ChangeShort DescriptionDeveloper Impact
New Token Structure & Naming ConventionA new token structure and updated token naming convention will be rolled outNone
New Opacity System TokenA new opacity token will be available for use with disabled statesNone
New Styling Strategy for ButtonsA new styling strategy will be rolled out to Canvas buttons in order to make buttons compatible with CSS variables while moving away from EmotionNone
Token Rollout to Canvas ButtonsCanvas Primary, Secondary, Tertiary, and Delete buttons will be updated to use the new token setNone
Space & Depth Rem ConversionSpace and Depth tokens will be converted from pixel to remLow
Deprecation of spaceNumbersIn favor of moving to rems, spaceNumbers will be deprecatedNone
Select Compound Component ConversionA new Select compound component will replace the current Select component in MainMedium
Deprecation of Select in PreviewThe Select component in Preview will be deprecatedNone
Deprecation of InputIconContainerThe InputIconContainer utility will be deprecatedNone
Deprecation of Table in MainThe Table component in Main will be deprecatedNone

New Token Structure and Naming Convention

Image displaying the relationship between base, system, and brand level tokens. Base tokens are tied to hard coded values that can then be referenced by system or brand level token. System and brand level tokens directly tie into Canvas components.

Canvas tokens will be restructured in Canvas v10 to:

  • Enable scalable visual changes at the core token level that flows across all Canvas components
  • Increase cohesion across Canvas components by standardizing token usage with semantic tokens
  • Empower product teams to build custom components using semantic tokens that can evolve with Canvas tokens

There are three level of Canvas tokens, which includes:

  • Base Tokens: tokens that represent hard coded values like a hex code or rem value. These tokens are maintained by the Canvas Design System team and should rarely be used by product teams.
  • System Tokens: tokens that are intended to be used by product teams. They are semantic, meaning that they are named according to how they should be used. These tokens are the most similar to what is available in Canvas today (ex: type, depth).
  • Brand Tokens: tokens that are used to set key brand colors and can be used by tenants to theme certain components to reflect their brand color.

With the current token structure, changing the hex value of Cinnamon 500 will result in a change to all components using Cinnamon 500, regardless of the context in which it is being used. This new three layer token structure along with the shift to a more semantic naming format allows the Canvas Design System to maintain and modify base tokens without impacting the intended use cases of system or brand tokens. As a result, teams using system tokens and brand tokens based on their intended use cases will be able to uptake those changes without the need for modifying their components.

Note: Color system tokens are still in development and will not be ready for the Canvas v10 release, but all other system tokens (ex: depth, space) will be available at the start of v10.

This new token set will also use rem as a unit of measurement instead of pixels to standardize Canvas tokens and improve the scalability of tokens across various screen sizes. All tokens will use rem as a unit of measurement, except for color tokens which will continue to utilize hex codes.

Token name are broken down into four parts: namespace, category, type, and modifire. The namespace is prefixed with "$cnvs" to tie it back to Canvas. The category represents the token tier, such as base or system. Type is used to categorize the token such as color, brand, or shape. Modifier is used to add specificity to the token such as "primary.main".

To support the new token structure, a new naming convention will also be implemented to help teams easily distinguish between different token levels.

This new token structure and naming convention will not result in breaking changes in code since the current set of tokens are not being modified or deprecated as part of v10. Instead, a new Canvas Tokens repo will be created to store the new set of tokens, which will also be ported into Canvas Kit React. The current token set will not be deprecated until Canvas fully migrates over to the new token structure and naming convention. However, developers will be able to use the new token set as part of v10.

Please note that this work is ongoing and will span across multiple Canvas releases. However, the new token set is subject to change as they are rolled out across all Canvas components.

New Opacity System Token

A new opacity token will now be introduced with the new token structure. The opacity disabled token will be the only opacity system token introduced in v10. It is set to 40% opacity to be used with disabled states, which does not have to meet contrast requirements to be accessible.

This token will be available in code for developers with the new token set.

New Styling Strategy for Buttons

A new styling strategy will start rolling out in Canvas v10 in parallel with the token and theming work, starting with Canvas buttons. Canvas will begin shifting towards static styling with the use of CSS variables as opposed to dynamic styling via Emotion to improve performance and reduce the need for full page style recalculations.

As part of this work, Canvas buttons styles will be refactored to use the new cs styling function. The style refactoring will allow Primary, Secondary, Tertiary, and Delete buttons to use the new tokens in the form of CSS variables through the CanvasProvider.

While Canvas will be moving away from styling with Emotion, Canvas users will still be able to use Emotion. This update will not impact developers. More information about the new styling strategy can be found in this GitHub discussion.

Token Rollout to Canvas Buttons

Canvas’s Primary, Secondary, Tertiary, and Delete buttons will be updated to use the new system and brand level tokens. Elements that are meant to be brandable, like the text color of Primary buttons, will be tied to a brand token. However, certain elements will be tied to base level tokens for the time being as new system tokens are created throughout the roll out process.

This update will not be a breaking change for developers, but developers will be able to see the new system and brand tokens being used to create Canvas buttons.

Space and Depth Rem Conversion

The current space and depth tokens in Canvas Kit will be updated to use rem instead of pixels in order to maintain consistency across all Canvas tokens and align with the new unit of measurement that will be utilized by the new token set. spaceNumbers will continue to be based in pixels, but will be deprecated in v10 as part of the transition over to rem based tokens.

This update to rem will impact developers using string literals. Additional resources will be provided to help developers switch over to rem.

Please see the discussion on px to rem migration.

Deprecation of spaceNumbers

spaceNumbers will be deprecated in v10 as part of the move towards rem based tokens. Teams using spaceNumbers can continue to do so in v10, but deprecation warnings will appear when it is in use.

Please see the discussion on px to rem migration.

It is recommended for developers to switch over to using CSS calc() instead as spaceNumbers will eventually be removed.

Select Compound Component Conversion

The Select component in Main will be replaced with a Select compound component as part of an effort to standardize component APIs and give developers more flexibility with customizing Canvas components.

Image displaying the before view (Select in Preview for v9) and the after view (updated v10 Select component in Main)

This new Select component will be visually similar to the Select in Preview, but with the following design changes:

  • The focus ring, error ring, and warning ring will no longer wrap around the menu for Select. Instead, rings will only wrap around the Select input to better align borders across different web browsers.
  • The spacing between the menu and its target element will increase from 0px to 4px in order to prevent the menu from overlapping with the focus, error, and warning rings. This change is being made to the Popup component directly, which will flow into Menu and Select as well.
  • The maximum height of the menu has been increased from 200px to 300px to accommodate 7 single-line items (the minimum number of items we recommend including in a Select) without triggering overflow. The maximum height may be overriden.

Developers using the current Select component in Main will have to change the API to match the new compound component's API. It is also recommended for developers using the Select component in Preview to switch over to the compound component version of Select, which will give them more flexibility and control over Select.

Deprecation of Select in Preview

The Select component in Preview will be deprecated in Canvas Kit with the introduction of the new Select compound component in Main. Select in Preview will still be available for use in Canvas v10, but deprecation warnings will appear when it is in use.

Developers should start replacing all instances of Select in Preview with the new Select compound component in Main, which will be available as part of the v10 release.

Deprecation of InputIconContainer

InputIconContainer will be deprecated in Canvas Kit. It will still be available for use in Canvas v10, but deprecation warnings will appear when it is in use.

Developers using InputIconContainer should switch over to using InputGroup, which has an added bidirectionality feature and can support icons at the start of an input.

Deprecation of Table in Main

The Table component in Main will be deprecated in Canvas Kit. It will still be available for use in Canvas v10, but deprecation warnings will appear when it is in use.

Developers using the Table component in the Main package should switch over to using the new Table in Preview, which has been updated to be more flexible with a more modern design.


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