Adobe Edge debuts in preview mode as HTML5 design tool
Adobe is warming up to HTML5 - so much in fact that its new design platform project, Edge, is touted to work natively with the language.
Basically, Adobe Edge is "a new motion and interactive design tool that lets creative professionals build animated web content using web standards such as HTML, CSS and Javascript," according to Devon Fernandez, a product manager for Adobe's web segment.
The keywords are motion and interactive (or rather, interaction) as the software enables designers and developers to add motion and move around layers quickly yet elegantly using WebKit without disturbing the CSS-based layouts. Users can gain control of and move around parts using the timeline interface, seen in the example below.
From there, the content should be able to be supported on most desktop browsers and mobile operating systems, namely Firefox, Chrome and Internet Explorer as well as Android, WebOS, and (ever the HTML5 fan) iOS.
Adobe Fellow Mark Anders remarked that Edge is "breaking new ground in productivity for animation because "we’re working on HTML -- not just generating an HTML file later."
Edge has already made a brief appearance once before at Adobe MAX 2010, and it is intended to compliment the rest of Adobe's Creative Suite 5.5, most especially Flash Professional. Adobe reps acknowledged that the "interface is similar to Adobe Photoshop, but designers are really creating HTML."
Adobe Edge will first be available for downloading from Adobe Labs starting on Monday, August 1 at 12:01 AM ET. The public preview is free, and it will be updated routinely over time.
However, Adobe reps could not answer how long the public trial period would last before the full-fledged version is released. They also did not answer how much the official final version would cost. So get your free preview copies while you can!
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