How can I use the HTML5 canvas element in IE?

Question

I am trying to use the HTML5 canvas element to draw some arcs and circles - this works perfectly in FF but IE8 does not seem to support it.

Now, there exist Javascript libraries which seem to make IE8 work well with Canvas. An example can be found here.

I have read their entire source but I cannot understand how they are making Canvas work with IE8. Can somebody please throw some light on the method used?

Answer 1

The page is using excanvas - a JS library that simulates the canvas element using IE's VML renderer.

Note that in Internet Explorer 9, the canvas tag is supported natively! See MSDN docs for details...