But if you take a look underneath the surface and examine the code being output then there are causes for concern - a high or total dependency on JavaScript to generate HTML content, bloated ‘divvy’ code and no consideration for fallback content or graceful degradation. With the rise of ‘HTML5’ and the previously mentioned apps it seems that some normally standards-aware developers are being swept along with the buzz, happy that you can now do all these cool animations that are ‘standards based’.
Made in the image of FlashĪny serious web developer would not consider the HTML code rendered by tools like Apple’s iWeb to be clean or optimal but rather to be bloated and messy. However, there’s a potential danger lurking under the surface with these apps and the many demos and samples showing off these new shiny features: Machine Generated Code. Many tools are now being developed to make the creation of these experiences much easier ( Edge, Sencha, Hype, MotionComposer, Animatable ( 2) etc). These new technologies combined with the power of JavaScript frameworks like jQuery offer the potential to create much more dynamic, animated, interactive user experiences on the web.
Here’s a preview video published on Adobe TV which introduces the updated features in Beta 5:Īs we move further into a post-Flash ( 1) web there’s a lot of excitement and hype about HTML5 and CSS3. I can’t see how non-square cropping would be possible with the limitations of current CSS3 capabilities, I’d happily be proven wrong on this though.
It is possible to clip content but this uses rectangular clipping by limiting the overflow of a containing div to be hidden.
One other feature that would be very good is some way to reproduce the masking capabilities that is possible in Flash, in particular the ability to apply a non-square mask over some content. I’m keen to see what new features are added in future Preview releases, one issue is in regard to responsive web layouts and how content created in Edge can possibly adapt to the dimensions of the device / browser window that it is viewed in, again for mobile access this is very important. I think there’s probably still a load of work to do in minimising file sizes as this is especially important for mobile devices. It’s good to see the minification capabilities added as this definitely helps deal with the size issue that I highlighted in my Preview 1 post. Down-level Stage for non-HTML5 Browsers - Use the new down-level stage to design static (non-animated) compositions that are compatible with older non-HTML5 browsers such as Internet Explorer 8 and below.
Publish to Web - Optimize your content for deployment by specifying if jQuery should be packaged with the composition, or downloaded from a CDN to improve caching.Edge also transforms the _edge.js file, and minifies both the _edge.js and _edgeActions.js files, resulting in significantly smaller files.In particular two things I’m pleased to see in Preview 5 are "Publish to Web" which brings code minification and "Down-level Stage for non-HTML5 Browsers" which provides a way to set fallback content for non-HTML5 browsers: Since then Adobe have been regularly updating the Preview releases for Edge and have just relea sed Adobe Edge Preview 5, since the initial Preview 1 release – which was pretty bare bones in regard to functionality – they have added a lot of new functionality. I wrote a post " My thoughts on Adobe Edge" back in August last year which looked at Edge Preview 1 where I was mainly interested in seeing how the output of Edge compared with Flash in capability, size and efficiency.