Adobe Debuts 'Wallaby' Prerelease Flash-to-HTML5 Converter

[0815]

I agree. Seems quite silly...Flash to HTML5. Why bother write it all in Flash then convert it to HTML5? Why not just learn HTML5, it's obvious Flash's time is coming to an end. HTML5 isn't that complicated either...Well IMO it's easier to learn than Flash.

R.I.P Flash. I won't miss you.

Not silly. There are tons of designers out there that know flash and nothing but flash (and the tools to create it). If they are smart, they use this to first enable them to generate HTML5 from the environment they know and love and transition them slowly to a 100% HTML5 designer tool without them even realizing that the output format has changed. That way they keep all their users before a competition comes up with some nice HTML5 designer tool.

If they do it right, it is the smartest move the can make. Of course, they also might screw this up big time by making horrible transformations (and than probably blame HTML5 for it)

HTML5 won't take off 100% until IE9 is in the wild.

sad but true. But even after IE9 is out, it will still take a long time, since many users (especially. businesses) have a very slow upgrade procedure in place.

 

[bretm]

But this is not a HTML5 Designer Tool - this is a flash->HTML5 ... makes we wonder who good the generated HTML5 will be (given the 'efficient' programming of Adobe and also following the 'garbage in, garbage out' rule).

But hey, I wait and see - maybe they did a good job in generating fantastic efficient HTML5 and see it as a way to make the transition easier.

Well, it's not a html 5 designer tool. It makes flash cs5 a html 5 designer tool. Right now it just converts a file but I would assume the tech would make it into flash (the app) as an export option. They might even change the name from flash if they're smart. Adobe Interactive or something.

 

[BaldiMac]

And yet most of those "web developers" do not use any tools or create web sites that do things like what flash can do.
Start doing the fancier stuff and it chances a fair amount.

Okay? Not sure how that relates to what I said. The claim that I was refuting is that there are more Flash developers than "HTML5 developers."

Umm you do know ads do not follow a set standard.

Yes.

The standard blockers look for common places for adds or things linking to another site for information. It is just scanning the html code for common ad location. I know in theory it is easy to get around ad blockers and fool them into displaying the ad. Little more work on the back in on how the ads are stored and loaded but still not very hard to do.

There are multiple reason why this is not done. One is is pisses people off. Also it is found people running the blockers tend not to click on ads any how so why bother screwing up you display rate vs people clicking on it. Advertiser are fine with it for the same reasons.
I do not see any real big changes happening for the same reason as ads are allowed to be block now. Not worth the trouble and more it pisses people off to get around them.

How does that answer my question about why ads built to open standards would be harder to disable than Flash ads?

 

[Stella]

sad but true. But even after IE9 is out, it will still take a long time, since many users (especially. businesses) have a very slow upgrade procedure in place.

Yep, as long as IE6 + IE7 and IE8 have more marketshare than IE9, HTML5 isn't going anywhere fast. Websites will be built to be compatible with the majority.

 

[deadkennedy]

The same way a copy of Dreamweaver, a resulting html file, and a web browser aren't a suite of tech.

The same way a copy of Final Cut, a quicktime movie, and the quicktime player aren't a suite of tech.

Or if they are, then I guess MS word and a .doc are just one item away from a suite of tech.

HTML 5 would be more of a suite of tech. Javascript, CSS, png, jpeg, etc. All those different tech come together to produce the web page. One tool, one tech, and one viewer doesn't describe a suite of tech to me. It's the exact tech you would expect. Gotta create it. Gotta have a file, and gotta play it.

Actually Flash constitutes of:

Number of Players (Flash Player, Gnash, AIR, AIR for TV, AIR for Mobile, Roll Your Own (TM))

Number of Authoring Tools (Flash Professional, Flash Builder, Flex SDK, Apparat, Roll Your Own(TM))

Number of other technologies (XML, CSS, XHTML, JSON, Roll Your Own(TM), etc.)

Number of media files you can directly manipulate or create on the fly (mp3, jpeg, png, video, etc.)




Whether you call it Suite, or Umbrella it doesn't matter, it's a huge ecosystem.

 

[ten-oak-druid]

Uh, please explain how Flash (the player) and Flash (the file format) and Flash (the authorizing tool) doesn't constitute a suite.

A programming suite would include multiple programming tools. Flash would be part of a programming suite from Adobe for instance.

 

[tbrinkma]

I agree that Adobe can make money on content creation tools in the short term - but weaning people off flash can't be good for them in the long term. In a post-flash market, Adobe will have more competition creating HTML5 tools.

No - Adobe is doing this because they have to, not because they really want to.

Adobe may not actively *want* to have to create HTML5 tools, but they sure as heck don't want to be anything but *first* creating those tools. If they wait until the market is established, they'll lose the first-mover advantage and have to fight the people who got in and got established early.

 

[ufkdo]

Adobe kills its own tool? Yes, I believed Adobe finally started working

 

[Daveoc64]

Yep, as long as IE6 + IE7 and IE8 have more marketshare than IE9, HTML5 isn't going anywhere fast. Websites will be built to be compatible with the majority.

I think the lack of IE9 on Windows XP is going to be a major issue with this.

 

[zim]

I saw the original demo and to me it looked like a meaningless HTML page with lots of bloat... why would anyone want to do this? Doesn't google penalize sites with bloat? I'll stick with what options CSS3 gives us.. besides check this out:

Crazy stuff!

http://www.anthonycalzadilla.com/

I like the AT-AT Walker best.

 

[nonameowns]

Only flash based animation would benefits this the most currently. Many features are not available for converting. Plus, HTML 5 is still in development and completion date is set for 2014.


So, transition will take a while folks.

 

[crackbookpro]

Could be the ticket... This looks promising!

 

[AppleFan1984]

The white flag of surrender in the Flash wars?

Flash player is free; Adobe makes their money selling authoring tools.
I'd color that flag green.

 

[fabianjj]

Why would ads produced using open standards be "a lot more difficult to disable"? Open standards should lead to more control.

because when all ads were flash-based, if you just blocked flash then you sjould be rid of pretty much all of the ads. If all ads were HTML5-based, then you'll need more advanced content filtering snd filtering servers, instead of pretty much only blocking adobes plugin.

 

[BaldiMac]

because when all ads were flash-based, if you just blocked flash then you sjould be rid of pretty much all of the ads. If all ads were HTML5-based, then you'll need more advanced content filtering snd filtering servers, instead of pretty much only blocking adobes plugin.

All ads have never been flash-based. The only difference is that you will block a different content type. Just like AdBlock currently blocks image ads and text ads and Flash ads. In fact, with non-Flash ads, we should theoretically have more control with the ability to disable certain features of the ads rather than it being all or nothing.

 

[err404]

Has the ability to block Flash actually become a feature?

Does anybody else find it ironic that people see the biggest "missing feature" of this converter to be that you can't block it?

To those who are afraid of ads, don't worry about it. If it really becomes a problem, there will be plenty of developers working on ways to effectively return the zen to your browser.

 

[pooprscooper]

Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; U; CPU iPhone OS 4_2_1 like Mac OS X; en-us) AppleWebKit/533.17.9 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/5.0.2 Mobile/8C148 Safari/6533.18.5)

If you guys hate ads so much just jb and buy the adblocker for a few bucks.

Those two words don't belong in the same sentence. Ideas are free.

 

[Winni]

Exactly!

I can't see what's in it for Adobe. It's a tool to help everyone move off Flash!

Simple: Adobe is the ONLY company in the market that is selling a design tool for HTML 5 webpages... And the ultimate news for the army of Flash designers and programmers is that they can leverage their knowledge from day one.

People tend to oversee a lot of things in this discussion. Macromedia designed Flash to offer a browser-/platform-independent solution for web developers. Then the Flash platform was extended to support rich web/client APPLICATIONS in a platform/OS-independent way and to deliver on a promise that Java never kept.

Flash actually delivered - and still delivers - a working solution to some very real problems.

HTML 5, on the other hand, is not even an existing standard yet, and neither are there any web browsers on the market that fully support the HTML 5 DRAFTS that currently exist. Safari, Chrome and Firefox 4 support a lot, but not all. Just try watching Apple's iPad 2 video in Internet Explorer 9, Firefox 4, Chrome 10 and Safari 5 and you get an idea what a DISASTER HTML 5 still is.

Flash was created to solve that disastrous situation and to free the user from the browser's restrictions. It worked and still works.

The Flash to HTML 5 converter is a smart move by Adobe. It silences the haters and the smart folks can still use the best web design tool on the market to do their job while selling to TWO markets instead of just one. And that tool still is Adobe Flash.

 

[Daveoc64]

Does anybody else find it ironic that people see the biggest "missing feature" of this converter to be that you can't block it?

To those who are afraid of ads, don't worry about it. If it really becomes a problem, there will be plenty of developers working on ways to effectively return the zen to your browser.

Although on iOS that's not going to be possible (without jailbreaking).

Ironically people might actually want plugins to remove content that was originally provided using a plugin!

 

[PeterQVenkman]

Although on iOS that's not going to be possible (without jailbreaking).

Ironically people might actually want plugins to remove content that was originally provided using a plugin!

Yup! There it is. People complained about Flash ads because they were giant and ate up processing power. OK, I understand that. I blocked them too! Well, those are starting to go away because of mobile net traffic that can't see flash.

What do advertisers do? Make it in HTML5. While adblock might even work against HTML5 ads, you can't get adblock on iOS or in Safari for iOS. Perhaps some other browsers will step up? Or will Apple block them?

The only way I can tolerate a site like gizmodo anymore is with adblock - and even then the recent slaughtering of their site with plain old HTML still makes me run from their site while screaming.

 

[linux2mac]

ROFLMAO! Even Adobe has given up on Flash.

 

[PeterQVenkman]

ROFLMAO! Even Adobe has given up on Flash.

Adobe doesn't know what to do with Flash. And even if they did, I don't think they could do it fast enough. Of course they created a 3d engine - whoopee! Unity already does that ten times better.

They should just create a brand new tool for creating rich HTML5, CSS, and javascript based pages and leave Flash behind.

 

[linux2mac]

Adobe doesn't know what to do with Flash. And even if they did, I don't think they could do it fast enough. Of course they created a 3d engine - whoopee! Unity already does that ten times better.

They should just create a brand new tool for creating rich HTML5, CSS, and javascript based pages and leave Flash behind.

Ahh, we finally agree on something.

 

[err404]

Although on iOS that's not going to be possible (without jailbreaking).

Ironically people might actually want plugins to remove content that was originally provided using a plugin!

Actually there are alternate browsers for iOS already that provide ad-blocking functionality. Most of them simply filter content based on a black-list, but one could create a robust style-sheet to pass the page through before being rendered by webkit. This method should comply with App Store regulations.

 

[crackbookpro]

Simple: Adobe is the ONLY company in the market that is selling a design tool for HTML 5 webpages... And the ultimate news for the army of Flash designers and programmers is that they can leverage their knowledge from day one.

People tend to oversee a lot of things in this discussion. Macromedia designed Flash to offer a browser-/platform-independent solution for web developers. Then the Flash platform was extended to support rich web/client APPLICATIONS in a platform/OS-independent way and to deliver on a promise that Java never kept.

Flash actually delivered - and still delivers - a working solution to some very real problems.

HTML 5, on the other hand, is not even an existing standard yet, and neither are there any web browsers on the market that fully support the HTML 5 DRAFTS that currently exist. Safari, Chrome and Firefox 4 support a lot, but not all. Just try watching Apple's iPad 2 video in Internet Explorer 9, Firefox 4, Chrome 10 and Safari 5 and you get an idea what a DISASTER HTML 5 still is.

Flash was created to solve that disastrous situation and to free the user from the browser's restrictions. It worked and still works.

The Flash to HTML 5 converter is a smart move by Adobe. It silences the haters and the smart folks can still use the best web design tool on the market to do their job while selling to TWO markets instead of just one. And that tool still is Adobe Flash.

Well said... There is true haters of Flash even though it is such a powerful program(past,present,future), it seems Apple has not necessarily won this battle of Flash vs No-Flash. Flash is still being utilized, and looks to remain having functionality on so many levels for Web Dev. Even though HTML5 has many advantages & jQuery replenishes many perks as well - Adobe Flash will always be force as the years go on.