Archive for the ‘WebDesign’ Category

Adobe launches Flash-to-HTML5 conversion tool

Tuesday, March 8th, 2011

Adobe launches Flash-to-HTML5 conversion tool

First previewed at Adobe Max 2010, Wallaby technology is now available for developers

by Jackie Dove, Macworld.com Mar 8, 2011 12:05 am

For most people, Wallaby conjures up images of a kangaroo-like creature. In the halls of Adobe, though, Wallaby has taken on a more technical identity.

Wallaby is the code name for an experimental Flash-to-HTML 5 converter that Adobe has just released to the development community via Adobe Labs, the site featuring Adobe’s beta technology. Wallaby, a cross-platform Adobe AIR application, is a tool that allows users to instantly convert Flash output (FLA files) to HTML5 via a simple drag and drop. It is available free for download.

Wallaby, which was first previewed last fall at Adobe’s Max 2010 developer conference, is featured at FITC, a Flash show in Amsterdam.

“We are making this available free on Adobe Labs as experimental technology; it’s something we hope to continue to iterate and get feedback on from customers,” said Tom Barclay, senior product manager for Flash Professional. “I’m interested in how useful this output is, what people intend to use it for, and whether this is something we should be supporting longer term in Flash Professional as another output option or publish setting.”

The release is especially significant for the Mac community because this technology would make some content previously unavailable on the iOS platform viewable on the iPad and iPhone. Apple does not support Flash on its iOS devices, arguing that Adobe’s multimedia technology is vulnerable to exploits, consumes too much battery life, and crashes too often. Adobe has fired back that Apple’s Flash ban is an overly restrictive policy that hurts users and software makers.

Not all elements from the Flash files will translate into HTML5, Barclay said. Users get the benefit of the overall design and motion graphic animations. But blend modes and filters—as well as audio, video, and ActionScript—are discarded in the translation. The output from Wallaby is essentially a combination of HTML, SVG (Scalable Vector Graphics), and CSS and is intended as a starting point. Vector graphics are converted to SVG; bitmaps are converted to image elements and JPEG files; and text is converted to paragraph elements or SVG text. The Flash timeline is converted to a group of CSS animations. Scripting allows for batch processing of multiple FLA files.

Tags: adobe labs, flash, html5
Posted in Adobe, Flash, HTML5, TechLinks, Tutorials, WebDesign | No Comments »

Open source code in an external editor from Firefox

Monday, January 17th, 2011

To do this, you need to enter about:config in Firefox’s URL bar, then accept the warning when prompted. In the Filter box, type source.editor, which will show you three variables. Double-click on view_source.editor.external first and change its value to true.

Next, double-click on view_source.editor.path, which will drop down a small sheet in which you enter the path to your preferred editor. The path must be a full complete Unix-style path, and point to the actual executable (not the app bundle). So for Coda, I used /Applications/added/Coda.app/Contents/MacOS/Coda. For BBEdit, you need to actually point to the command-line version (/usr/local/bin/bbedit); to do that, you must have first installed BBEdit’s own command line tools (BBEdit -> Install Command Line Tools). Other editors should work; just dig into the bundle (from Finder’s contextual menu, Show Package Contents) to find the name of the actual binary. Click OK to dismiss the sheet, and you’re done.

From now on, Command-U should open the page source in your chosen editor. If it fails, the code will just open directly in Firefox. To revert to Command-U’s original behavior, just open about:config again, and set view_source.editor.external back to false.