Adobe Edge & HTML 5 Could mean the end of Flash as we know it!
Adobe Edge & HTML 5 Could mean the end of Flash as we know it!
Article by A1 Digital Media
Adobe Edge and HTML5
Adobe as recently launched Adobe Edge and it’s free to download for those interested at Adobe’s Labs webpage. Adobe’s been playing around with HTML5 tools for a while now, and the Edge authoring tool proves that Adobe’s readying itself for a post-Flash Internet.
Edge will let web coders “bring animation, similar to that created in Flash Professional, to websites using standards like HTML5, JavaScript and CSS,” according to Adobe’s press release, which alludes to the fact that there are “rapid changes around HTML5,” so it’s “adopting an open development methodology for Adobe Edge and is releasing the software on the Adobe Labs site much earlier than normal in the development proces-before it even reaches beta.” The bold move allows “user feedback to help shape the final product.”
Users of Adobe’s professional products like Flash Professional or Lightroom will be familiar with its clean, simple modular panel display, with a “working window” and a timeline. By clicking on objects in a web page, designers can then drag them to the timeline and apply effects on a timed basis, moving graphics around, rotating them, fading them in and out with certain speeds and timings. It has all the usability of a slickly-designed UI, and all the complexity coders will appreciate functions like tweening and easing. The casual observer will also recognize this as the sort of functionality usually delivered by Flash code in websites. If you’re not familiar with Flash, pick almost any photographer’s website from Google, they love showing of their work and their websites are infested with Flash because it makes browsing their portfolio more eye-pleasing.
More thoughtful observers will also notice the similarlity with Flash and note the prominence of the words “HTLM5″ and “CSS” in the press release. Adobe says “Edge Preview works natively with HTML,” “enables users to add motion to existing HTML documents without hampering design integrity of CSS-based layouts,” “create visually rich content from scratch, using familiar drawing tools that produce HTML elements styled with CSS3″ and “standard web graphics assets such as SVG, PNG, JPG and GIF”, all signs point to future-facing toolset that utilizes much more open web standards than its proprietary Flash system did.
“Content created with Edge is designed to work on modern browsers including those on Android, BlackBerry, Playbook, iOS, HP webOS, and other smartphone mobile devices as well as Firefox, Google Chrome, Safari, and Internet Explorer,” the announcement continues. Essentially Adobe’s admitting that due to the sudden boom in the use of mobile and handheld devices it needs to have its presence felt on all of the new mobile browsers and all modern high-tech web browsers.
Edge doesn’t quite offer all that Flash does, and Adobe does stress it’s currently meant to be a “lightweight professional tool” that complements Adobe’s existing web tools, such as Adobe Dreamweaver, Adobe Flash Professional etc. However, for those that remember, Flash wasn’t fully featured at first, when it emerged from Macromedia’s labs, and it had more features added over time.
But while Adobe in a sense had to launch Edge, to keep a presence in the web design and devlopment game even as the web evolves around it, developers should be pleased as what Adobe’s promising is a powerful, sleek design tool. That coupled with the advancements in HTML5 can only be good for web design.
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Web Design Watford by A1 Digital Media
