Adobe has unveiled a preview release of a new HTML5 animation tool that is designed to let web designers bring Flash-like content to sites using HTML, JavaScript, and CSS. It’s called Adobe Edge.
The company says it’s adopting an open development methodology for Edge, so it is available earlier than usual in the development process. It’s been released through Adobe Labs. Users will be able to contribute feedback, and influence the final product.
“Over the last year Adobe has delivered on several significant HTML5 milestones including contributions to jQuery, submitting code to WebKit, and enhanced HTML5 output in Creative Suite® 5.5,”said Paul Gubbay, vice president of Design and Web Engineering at Adobe. “Now, with Adobe Edge, we’re taking our HTML5 tooling to a whole new level and look forward to getting some really useful feedback from the community over the next few months, as we refine the product.”
Edge Preview 1 is finally here! Create animated content using HTML5, CSS3, and JavaScript with a slick, easy to use timeline-based interface. Download it now for free on Adobe Labs.
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Adobe explains:
The Adobe Edge preview works natively with HTML. It enables users to add motion to existing HTML documents without hampering design integrity of CSS-based layouts, and it also enables users to easily create visually rich content from scratch, using familiar drawing tools that produce HTML elements styled with CSS3. Users can import standard Web graphics assets such as SVG, PNG, JPG and GIF files and style them using CSS3. The design stage utilizes WebKit to enable design, preview and manipulation of content with incredible fidelity. The innovative timeline feature is both familiar for creative professionals and breaks new ground in animation productivity to enable users to define and customize motion applied to HTML elements with extreme precision.
The content created with Edge is designed to work with modern browsers, including those on Android, BlackBerry PlayBook, iOS, HP webOS, as well as Firefox, Chrome, Safari, and IE9.
Edge will be updated regularly to add new functionality, Adobe says. It’s free of charge for the preview version.