“An experimental technology that converts the artwork and animation contained in Adobe Flash files into HTML.”
Now there’s something you would hardly expect to hear. Even more so, coming from Adobe itself. But this is what is headlining a new experimental application from the software giant who constantly defend their Flash technology – despite its lack of support on the growing number of mobile and iOS devices – against HTML 5 standards, which are widely supported.
Wallaby is an application from Adobe Labs which takes a FLA file (essentially a Flash project) and breaks it down into its components and then attempts to replicate its functionality in HTML, CSS and JavaScript. Flash has been a steadfast requirement for browsing the web for many years on desktop computers, but of all the major mobile platforms it is only Android 2.2 and greater that support Flash – even then, it is a cut down version. The long history of Apple refusing to support Flash on its iOS devices, the wildly popular iPhone and iPad, is partly credited with pushing more web developers to using mobile (and desktop) friendly HTML 5 technologies. Could Adobe be preparing for a reversal?
It looks unlikely that Adobe are going to ditch Flash entirely; it does seem that they are aware of the requirements for a solution to getting content on to iOS and other non-Flash devices.
“You can view the output in one of the supported browsers or on an iOS device” explains the Adobe site for the tool. “Please note that not all Flash Professional features are supported in the HTML5 format.”
Give the application, codenamed “Wallaby”, a go today by getting it from their site.
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