StudioTalk: Wellington Web Design and Branding Blog

At long last, Adobe has realised the future of web-based animation! Flash is an amazing utility to achieve some mind-blowing effects and online experiences, no doubt about that. But with the debacle surrounding Apple’s iPad and iPhones lack of flash support, many questions have been raised about the future of Flash.

jQuery has been around quite some time, but with the recent uptake of HTML5 and CSS3, we can now achieve Flash-quality experiences without the dependence upon a third-party plugin. So iPad, iPhone, Android or PC – it doesn’t matter what platform you’re on, you will enjoy a web experience to rival even some of the flashiest Flash websites. This is of course if you’re sporting a CSS3/HTML5-compatible browser (Chrome, Firefox 5+, Safari 3, Internet Explorer 9).

It seems that Adobe has decided to embrace the growing popularity in such technology and has released a preview of it’s Adobe Edge application. Adobe Edge allows web designers to create slick animations and effects without knowing the code and all the guts behind the scene.

Adobe Edge uses a very AfterEffects-ey interface with the standard timeline, working space and intuitive tools. Have a play around with it with a free download of Adobe Edge Preview.

Adobe CS5 Master Collection

I feel like it was just 6 months ago since the last Adobe CS release, but they’ve just launched CS5! Hot on the tails of much debate on the Flash vs Apple, CS5 promises more flash to it’s Flash. Naturally there are always going to be improvements, but I’m not quite convinced there’s a great deal more on offer than the leap from CS3 to CS4.

The interface is the same, with only minor adjustments to some of the toolbar icons and the addition of CS Live! support. CS Live! is a tool Adobe has incorporated into the entire CS5 package which is designed to harness the collaborative power of the internet. Posting work-in-progress to others to collect feedback on a project’s direction is a tool which I can imagine many users finding very useful, however to me it adds no value.

BrowserLabs Browser Compatibility Testing
Dreamweaver has a new BrowserLab (http://browserlab.adobe.com) tool (which is available as a web-based application) and it enables web developers to test web pages in an array of browsers. The idea is hardly new but other testing solutions are messy, complicated and often expensive (requiring multiple machines and OS). As a developer I can appreciate the time it takes to test bugs and variations between browser engines and I welcome a seemless way to test browser compatibility.

Initially I was very skeptical, but after further inspection it actually seems that BrowserLab is generating images of each browser’s render, in much the same way that BrowserShots (http://browsershots.org) does. This means you’re getting a realistic representation of your website in each browser. Booyah!

64-Bit Support
Again, much of the Creative Suite 5 misses out on exploiting the growing list of 64-bit operating systems (OSX Leopard, OSX Snow Leopard, Windows Vista, Windows 7). The only 64-bit-native programs are Photoshop Extended, AfterEffects and Premier. Granted, these are the most processor-intensive programs but I certainly feel that Illustrator and Flash would benefit hugely from being 64-bit-native. Then again, I’m no software programmer.

What does it cost?
For the mac-daddy Master Edition you’ll be forking out over AU$3,900 for the full package, or over AU$1,300 for the upgrade (they curiously don’t have NZ$ prices). As always, Adobe CS is always going to be expensive, and for the last CS release (CS4) it was definitely worth it. To me, CS5 doesn’t bring enough new developments to warrant spending that kind of cash.

Summary
All told, CS5 is pretty, has a few nice new tweaks, hasn’t crashed on me (yet!) and is curiously trying to strengthen it’s Flash product with better reliability and special effects. However, all nicities aside, CS5 isn’t worth the dollars you’ll need to spend to upgrade. Download the trial (sure, if you’ve got 6gb of data cap to spare) and have a play for yourself (http://www.adobe.com/ap/downloads/).