Adobe Animate will be discontinued
helpx.adobe.com
helpx.adobe.com
I’ve mentioned this on here before, but I stand by it: developing Flash is the most fun way I have found to program.
Now, part of this is because Flash was one of the first things that I learned to program, so it’s probably a big rose-tinted because i was younger and it was new, but even as a thirty-something I still have had a blast playing with Flash MX Pro (legally acquired, of course).
Flash is so interesting to me, because it is animation first, but the programming was bolted on pretty elegantly. You could animate something using professional tools, highlight it, make it a movie clip, and immediately export it to code and hack against that. Yeah it was hard to maintain for big projects but it was fun how quickly 15 year old tombert could go from a few drawings to a simple game.
I miss it.
I learning to program with as2 and as3.
Of course, not at all on the same level like flash was, but some parts worked really nice.
Unfortunately it is abandoned. (I thought about taking it up, but would require lots of effort, basically rewriting core parts)
(Btw in Flash, even the whole UI of the editor was scriptable, every action visible as a script command)
> We are not discontinuing or removing access to Adobe Animate. Animate will continue to be available for both current and new customers, and we will ensure you continue to have access to your content. There is no longer a deadline or date by which Animate will no longer be available.
"We're going to provide support and security patches" means "in a year we'll quietly stop any work on it anyway"
> A material number of customers see Animate as a differentiator from our competitors, so even if we only provide support and security patches, the investment is justified for retention.
I don't really think there's a hidden agenda here. The announcement surfaced new information for them, they probably reframed their own analytics and saw insights that backed maintaining Animate as a result.
That's such corporate-speak.
It means they don't know their customers at all and/or couldn't care less. They literally told major animation studios that the product is going to be dead in just a month.
And now they slightly backtracked the decision by promising vague support and bug fixes. Internally the product is already dead (otherwise there wouldn't be an announcement), teams disbanded and/or re-organized. They will fund a skeleton crew for "bug fixes", and the product will eventually be broken beyond repair in the same time frame as in the original deprecation notice.
"we've listened and we're going to keep offering Animate" (crowd cheers)
".. but we're not going to make any changes to the software" (crowd cheers louder)
"wait why are they still cheering"
.. the joke being that the customers don't want the software to materially change, just so long as it continues to run.
Or, a bad finish can absolutely ruin a good start.
Adobe has no clue how unattractive it is right now.
Exactly what my guess about this is too. People who rely on Animate shouldn't rest easy just because Adobe backed off this time.
Making a zombie product probably has a lower impact on their revenues.
I might still have an InDesign Subscription if Adobe had just rolled all of Freehand's capabilities into it --- instead, I keep a Windows computer for it and a stylus (despite Windows having crippled stylus functionality in Windows 10 Fall Creators Update) --- which reminds me, stylus usage in Waterfox broke again and I have to look up how to fix it (again).
Other similar projects?
Another reason for me to knuckle down and write my own (programmable) drawing program....
1. Candlestick https://github.com/Candlestickers/Candlestick
2. StickmanRed’s Fork https://github.com/StickmanRed/wick-editor
3. This brand new fork: https://forum.wickeditor.com/t/started-my-own-fork-luke-tool...
I wish SWF became a common HTML5 transpile format.
Perhaps you could render to Canvas/WebGL/WebGPU, but you still need to reproduce the entire engine there.
This year's jam just started:
Either it has value and shouldn't be open sourced in which case why not keep developing it.
If it has no value whats the excuse not open source it as a sign of good will for artists and developers to invest time in your ecosystem, otherwise the message is "If you build with our apps and systems you will be locked out of your work forever when its an inconvenience for us, even if you're paying us hundreds a year"
https://www.reddit.com/r/adobeanimate/comments/1qv5yju/updat...
Absolutely abhorrent communication. There was no “confusion”, they even admit later in the messaging they changed their plans:
> More importantly, Animate will continue to be available for both new and existing users. This is a change from what we communicated in the email yesterday for the status of Adobe Animate, its time-frame, and availability.
Just lead with that, no need to throw sand in people’s eyes.
I stopped using Flash long before it became Animate. I'm really sad to see it go, and that Adobe has so little love to this important piece of the web and the Internet.
As far as I know, there is nothing comparable to the Flash experience on the market.
this also just goes to show that its reckless to base all your software on a closed platform like that. Sooner or later it will come back to bite you