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The emerging web development technology, HTML5, may perhaps have scored a great point in the fact that Adobe has refocused its technologies into embracing rather than competing with it. The latest enabling entrant being the introduction of  'Wallaby' - a technology that converts the artwork and animation contained in Adobe Flash Professional (FLA) files into HTML.

Coupled with a ton of other HTML5 initiatives from Adobe, Wallaby, is tended as a tool to help convert the rich animated graphical contents of Flash into a form that can be easily imported into other web pages in development with web design tools like Dreamweaver. And only WebKit-based browsers (Safari and Chrome) are supported for now.

Some limitations, however, have been attributed to the new conversion tool, notably: Dynamic masks, 3D transforms, filters and blend mode are not supported. Also, ActionScript code is not converted to JavaScript, while animations are translated using CSS instead of JavaScript or similar cross-browser framework. Additional limitation is that graphics are translated into SVG vectors or JPEG bitmaps, instead of Canvas (an SVG alternative supported by Google and Mozilla for HTML5 games).

Adobe critics have stressed the move as an effort to slow HTML5 standards adoption and probably reposition Flash in the mainstream which the new open web platform is encroaching.

However, Adobe has given reasons for the omission of Canvas in favor of SVG for slowness, stating that it slows the readability of HTML.

The overall development, however, is certainly a welcome one, with tons of  legacy Flash contents that are begging for conversion into HTML5, and perhaps these leveraging of Flash animation transitions to run anywhere may well position the incumbent in the platform wars.

Flash-To-HTML5 Conversion

The emerging web development technology, HTML5, may perhaps have scored a great point in the fact that Adobe has refocused its technologies into embracing rather than competing with it. The latest enabling entrant being the introduction of  'Wallaby' - a technology that converts the artwork and animation contained in Adobe Flash Professional (FLA) files into HTML.

Coupled with a ton of other HTML5 initiatives from Adobe, Wallaby, is tended as a tool to help convert the rich animated graphical contents of Flash into a form that can be easily imported into other web pages in development with web design tools like Dreamweaver. And only WebKit-based browsers (Safari and Chrome) are supported for now.

Some limitations, however, have been attributed to the new conversion tool, notably: Dynamic masks, 3D transforms, filters and blend mode are not supported. Also, ActionScript code is not converted to JavaScript, while animations are translated using CSS instead of JavaScript or similar cross-browser framework. Additional limitation is that graphics are translated into SVG vectors or JPEG bitmaps, instead of Canvas (an SVG alternative supported by Google and Mozilla for HTML5 games).

Adobe critics have stressed the move as an effort to slow HTML5 standards adoption and probably reposition Flash in the mainstream which the new open web platform is encroaching.

However, Adobe has given reasons for the omission of Canvas in favor of SVG for slowness, stating that it slows the readability of HTML.

The overall development, however, is certainly a welcome one, with tons of  legacy Flash contents that are begging for conversion into HTML5, and perhaps these leveraging of Flash animation transitions to run anywhere may well position the incumbent in the platform wars.
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