Adobe Demos Flash to HTML5 Conversion Tool | Hacker News Reader

Adobe Demos Flash to HTML5 Conversion Tool

blogs.adobe.com

38 pointscosgroveb14 comments

It appears that it is specifically converting to SVG (+ javascript animation), given the speaker’s comments about how high-res (not PNG or <video>) and not computationally expensive (not <canvas>) the exported graphics are.

Yeah. I originally put "HTML5" in scare-quotes in the submission title for this reason. It seems like anything sweet we can make our browsers these days inevitably gets labeled "HTML5" even if it's not!

Same thing happened when "AJAX" came to mean any kind of dynamic webpages. People like having these big bucket reference points in technology.

I know many folks saw this and the Adobe Edge tools as something Adobe would be creating in the future but it is really nice to see them in action already and I can't wait to get my hands on the first release build to take a look at just what they are kicking out code wise.

Prior to the purchase of Macromedia, Adobe was actually a large proponent of SVG. See http://www.adobe.com/svg. Adobe tried to compete directly with Flash with products such as LiveMotion and the SVG exporter for Illustrator. After the Macromedia purchase, Adobe's SVG investments clearly dwindled. However, in light of new competition, SVG may once again prove its worth.

Its heartening to know how adobe is trying to co-exist with HTML5.

Their revenue model historically based upon flash content tools, and not flash as technology. and Now they are focusing their energies to make better tools for HTML5, not fighting it.

Now they are making tools for HTML5, not fighting it? They've been doing this for a long time (Macromedia before that with Dreamweaver and WaSP with the DW Task Force). I mean, anyone who knows the history of the company saw this coming.

And no, I don't imagine their revenue model being based on Flash content tools. Adobe is much more than just Flash.

Yeah they are. My comment meant for "their revenue model wrt flash".

Ahh, gotcha. That makes more sense. =)

But even still, I think they have a big leg up here. Imagine being a Flash developer, and Flash suddenly supporting HTML5. You can take what you've learned and leverage it against new tech. Instead of Flash authoring tools just authoring for Flash, now they can support all these cool open standards.

If anything, that's a great justification for using Adobe products.

Ah, this might be bad news for http://smokescreen.us

I've been watching them hopefully for a couple months, and it's been looking pretty good (see the demo of Strongbad in js here: http://smokescreen.us/demos/sb45demo.html ), but unless they end up with a better product than the code Adobe rolls out, their program will probably get little use. If it wasn't supposed to be open source, I could suggest he sell it to people with noncurrent versions of CS who didn't want to upgrade, but just wanted the HTML5 export feature.

I don't see any interactivity with it. That's the problem I see. Otherwise it's a scrolling animated movie.

When I see an interactive RIA so easily converted to HTML5 then I will be impressed.

Historical fun fact: Flash Professional used to export Java, as that was the relevant runtime of the day. Tools evolve to meet viewer demands.

Anyone else notice that "fun fact"? Sounds more like Adobe's way of implying that HTML5 might just be a "fad".

No.

I think it's their way of reminding the population that Adobe creates tools that other people can use to create what they want. People seem to think that Adobe is against standards, when the truth is they've been working a long time to support standards in their products. That doesn't mean they only support standards. Of course, I don't know anyone who does.

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