Wednesday, September 28, 2011

HTML 5 with Sencha and Adobe Edge

I'm venturing with HTML 5 these days. Currently I'm studying Sencha and Adobe Edge. These two are Flash like softwares which allow you to create animation through GUI program. Basically what you do is just creating number of frames that would combine up eventually to form an animation. Pretty much like flash. I'm really excited about this stuff. I'll keep posting my experiences. Thanks.

The reference links

Thursday, September 22, 2011

Flash Vs HTML 5

It really amuses me when people say that HTML 5 is the direct replacement of Flash. Internet chatters have started shouting like "HTML 5 is a miracle", "Who wants flash", "Flash is dead" and what not. So what really is this all about? Are they true? I'm sure anybody who has slightest of experience with Javascript programming will part his way from this bandwagon.

What is HTML 5 animation?

J Well, it’s just Javascript maneuvering. HTML has come up with a new tag element called “canvas” that is meant to be the medium of animation. Javascript is used to animate this canvas.

Can we do in HTML 5 whatever we can in Flash?

If we take it up as a separate project and decide to emulate whatever Flash can do then it could be possible on many cases. But it’s not feasible. Flash with all its powerful tools and utilities is a far superior and rapid option to create animation.

Why it is so hard?

Because you have to code it. Flash and HTML are meant for different purposes and have different philosophy. Flash does everything for you automatically while in HTML you have to actually code it. In most of the sites nowadays we see a banner rotator. Do they code it? No. They use JQuery. JQuery is a separate Javascript project which is built upon reams of coding over the years. But JQuery also has its own limitation. Even after all these years, JQuery has a limited set of pre-coded animations (that too basic ones) available. And here we are talking about replacing the boundless power of Flash. Because of this, barring some “prototype” examples we see for HTML 5 on net, it is not used for REAL animation anywhere.

So what's in the future?

Until someone comes up with a software that writes all the javascript automatically from a graphical interface for HTML 5 (just as Flash does it) it is going to remain an over hyped concept. The iPad/iPhone programmers will continue to use video files as the flash replacement.

In short, if you are not a web programmer, you will find the Flash Vs HTML 5 conversation interesting. Otherwise, you will just laugh at it and continue doing what you have been doing for years.