Adobe launch Flash-less, HTML-based Edge animation tool
Adobe Edge, a web animations building tool using standard technologies like CSS, JavaScript and HTML5, was launched in a preview version today. It is being billed as a rival to Adobe’s own Flash Professional tool, which is also used to create animated media content.
Paul Gubbay, vice president of engineering, design and web at Adobe, told The Register: “With Flash, we’re focused on the upper echelon of rich interactivity – gaming apps, rich media apps, including video, and data driven apps. But some of the things that were originally done with Flash we now see being done in HTML5 and JavaScript.”
Flash in the past was the go-to tool for web designers looking to create “flashy” bits of content for their web sites, such as short animated clips. Of late, however, Flash has been heavily criticized – especially by Apple, who have banned it from their mobile devices.
Web standards have been developed up to the point where they can be used to create similar media, lessening the need for an explicit plug-in such as the Flash player. The preview version of Adobe Edge is available as a free download here, and you can watch a video clip introducing the Edge tool here.
Written by Matthias Scherer
Matthias is a journalist and writer covering the latest news in technology as well as reviewing new computer products for PC Site. After studying journalism and economics in London, Matthias worked in radio and as a music writer for various publications in the UK and Germany, covering everything from politics and music to online publishing and social media. He is a self-diagnosed internet addict, but wrestles himself away from the computer to read books by angry young men, put on punk or rap records and watch Seinfeld.
Mon, Aug 1, 2011