Flash is now officially dead.

[pziecina]

We all knew it was comming, but here is the official announcement -

https://blogs.adobe.com/conversations/2017/07/adobe-flash-update.html

I know what i would now like adobe to do, but i'd have to censor my own post

[Jon Fritz]

Hooray for dis-ambiguous deadlines!

2 years and 5 months until Flash officially dies, completely, not kidding this time, not feeling a little better, all the way dead.

Hold-outs better get crackin', those 29 months are going to fly.

[Nancy OShea]

https://forums.adobe.com/people/Jon+Fritz+II  wrote

Hooray for dis-ambiguous deadlines!

2 years and 5 months until Flash officially dies, completely, not kidding this time, not feeling a little better, all the way dead.

Hold-outs better get crackin', those 29 months are going to fly.

As far as I'm concerned, anything requiring Flash Player today is a zombie.   The browsers have already begun killing support for plugins which means Flash's days will soon be over.  I honestly don't think Flash sites can afford to wait 12 or 15 months.  They need to be working on changes right now -- as in yesterday is not soon enough.

Nancy

[pziecina]

I'm wondering how many people will still try to use flash for content right up to the point that it becomes impossible to continue doing so. One only has to look at those still creating content for old browsers, then complaining that they were hacked, or the number of users still unwilling to belive that classic asp should not be used, and MS servers will support it forever more.

[Nancy OShea]

That reminds me of an old joke.

Mr. Brown religiously attends synagogue and prays to God each time asking for the same thing. "Please God,," he says, "I'm a good & faithful man. I follow the doctrines and perform good deeds whenever possible.  Why won't you let ME win the lottery?  Just once.  Is that too much to ask?"  

This ritual goes on & on for many, many years.  Mr. Brown begins to feel that his prayers will never be answered.  Then one day after reciting his prayer, the alter suddenly opens up, a bright light shines down from heaven and a deep voice bellows out from all directions and says, "Why don't you BUY A LOTTERY TICKET!?  Just once.  Is that too much to ask? "

Nancy

[rayek.elfin]

Yet another Macromedia victim. One wonders how long it will take for Adobe to pull the plug on Dreamweaver.

[pziecina]

What surprised me in the announcement, was Adobe taking the credit for originally developing flash and shockwave.

[John Waller]

Yes, I thought that was a bit of a stretch.

[ALsp]

pziecina  wrote

What surprised me in the announcement, was Adobe taking the credit for originally developing flash and shockwave.

Well, they've certainly taken ownership of Dreamweaver. They are such visionaries. With humongous cataracts.

[Nancy OShea]

Let's give credit where credit is due.    Macromedia developed Shockwave technology but they did not create Flash.  Flash was created by a San Diego tech company called FutureWave.   The editor was then called  FutureSplash Animator.  In 1996, Macromedia acquired FutureWave and renamed the animation editor Macromedia Flash.    Some years later, Adobe acquired Macromedia. 

Nancy

[ALsp]

https://forums.adobe.com/people/Nancy+OShea  wrote

Let's give credit where credit is due.    Macromedia developed Shockwave technology but they did not create Flash.  Flash was created by a San Diego tech company called FutureWave.   The editor was then called  FutureSplash Animator.  In 1996, Macromedia acquired FutureWave and renamed the animation editor Macromedia Flash.    Some years later, Adobe acquired Macromedia. 

...and did absolutely nothing to make it better. They are obviously quite good at making at left turns and southerly headings. Macromedia, on the other hand, made phenomenal improvements to the software they acquired. FutureWave was not Flash, it was used as the basis for Flash, combined with the Shockwave player, originally developed by Macromedia for its flagship Director program. Dreamweaver was loosely based on a program called Backstage (if I recall the name right), but was mostly an in-house Macromedia development.

What killed Macromedia was the purchase of ColdFusion's parent, as well as frivolous lawsuits initiated by...Adobe. Their creativity essentially ceased after the company's founders became inactive.

[pziecina]

All the browser providers and Apple/windows OS's have issued a joint statement, (even applies to IE11) which says similar to this one from MS -

"By the end of 2020, we will remove the ability to run Adobe Flash in Microsoft Edge and Internet Explorer across all supported versions of Microsoft Windows. Users will no longer have any ability to enable or run Flash."

I think the time has come for the Dw team to implement a feature I have been asking for since before CS6 was released -

A CSS Animations editor.

With css animations most of the UI components that one used flash for, are possible using just html and css.

I would like to say that an easy way to write javascript for the html5 canvas would be a good idea, (also filed years ago) similar to the old actionscript actions panel in Flash, but as I think Adobe will now concentrate on Animate CC for canvas content, (and continue to give it a higher investment priority over Dw) this is nothing more than a pipe dream.

[BenPleysier]

Paula,

A CSS editor in DW would be a great idea if the designer and developer are one and the same.

Problem is that I get a lot of my work from graphic designers who are used to working in Flash and are now working with Animate. I get the animations delivered as FLA files and I use Animate to convert them to HTML, JS and images.

I am waiting for the moment that I can try WebGL. At the moment Animate only includes a preview that does not allow it to be used fully.

[pziecina]

BenPleysier  wrote

Paula,

A CSS editor in DW would be a great idea if the designer and developer are one and the same.

Problem is that I get a lot of my work from graphic designers who are used to working in Flash and are now working with Animate. I get the animations delivered as FLA files and I use Animate to convert them to HTML, JS and images.

I am waiting for the moment that I can try WebGL. At the moment Animate only includes a preview that does not allow it to be used fully.

I keep asking who Dw is aimed at,

The problem I find with making any suggestions is that there is a disconnect between what the browsers implement, what the W3C 'documents', and how Adobe thinks which product it should be implemented in.

The html5 specs and the W3C specs are all written for browser implementer, (with minor exceptions) but actually deciding which product from adobe something would be best suited, is like trying to work through a maze. Having said that there is not a single Adobe product that supports working with css animations, (transition/transform/keyframes) in a visual manner,

Most UI elements, from menus, carousels, lightboxes to parallax scrolling effects, can be done using just html and css, which is why I think Dw should support the creation of css animations.

As for WebGL, I played with the original IE implementation and created a few demos, (including the usual 3d solar system animation and rotating Aircraft) and to be honest I found it fantastic, but I have no idea where to use it in a practical situation.

Maybe it's a sign of old age when I cannot think of what use something should be, (don't agree with that ).

[pziecina]

I've found one big advantage to being a moderator, and that is being able to read posts for various forums easily.

Many of those posters are in denial about the demise of flash, and i even read one reply that told someone to drop back to an older version of flash pro to create flash content for the web if required!!!

However for a number of other adobe programs, that use flash in an app environment and not a browser based one, the PM's of those programs have posted about plans for the future, after the demise of the flash player. In the programs that are aimed at creating web sites and browser based apps however, there is nothing, zero, zilch.

Can it be that the PM's for programs that create web sites and content do not have any plans?

I'm not critisizing any of the Adobe staff that help out in these forums, but it would be nice to know from those above them if they even have any plans for the future without flash, even though most of us dropped flash years ago.

Then again maybe they do not know the possibilities of html5, css, javascript or even the possibilitys of using web assembly in browsers.

[Nemesis47]

I was struck by a shockwave by reading this.

[pziecina]

Nemesis47  wrote

I was struck by a shockwave by reading this.

I get a "wave of shock" when I visit the Animate and flash player forums, and still find people being told that flash is not dead, and can continue to be used.

Yes, in those forums users are told that flash content can be packaged as an Air component or that the end user can download the flash content and use the stand-alone flash player, so can still be used. Maybe lots of 'advisors' need a reality check, when saying this?

[B i r n o u]

you can't imagine what I read on the Flash Forum... euh sorry the Animate forum... about animation, and HTML5.... we should ask ourselves... why do we try to follow w3c, html, css... aria...rdf... well...

[pziecina]

https://forums.adobe.com/people/B+i+r+n+o+u  wrote

you can't imagine what I red on the Flash Forum... euh sorry the Animate forum... about animation, and HTML5.... we should ask our selves... why do we try to follow w3c, html, css... aria...rdf... well...

Believe me Birnou when I say I can imagine what is written in the Animate forum.

I do know there are some very intelligent and knowledgable acp's and Adobe personnel when it comes to web development, but !!!

[B i r n o u]

I believe you Paula... arf arf... when I said "...you can't imagine...", in fact it's a french expression that mean's it's really amazing... it's too much...

[W_J_T]

Flash is dead? Long live ... er .. oh .. yeah .. Flash is Dead.

I left my dear friend Flash with a tear in my eye and still with sorrow in my heart almost a decade ago. Fortunately, I can still dig out concepts from old AS2/AS3 projects and remake them in vanilla HTML5, Canvas, Javascript, etc., with no need to rethink various maths and logics, and recreate them right in a text editor.

Sad to think what could of been had you not been placed in foster care with an unloving stepparent. Adios muchacho !

[pziecina]

I wonder if we should also declare Dreamweaver dead, as it is also going nowhere, and just a shadow of what it used to be.

Adobe introduced the Edge products in an over reaction to the media criticism for Dw CS5 not supporting html5 or css3, then dropped the Edge products when its w3c spec proposals were not fast tracked by the browsers, (chrome even removed its regions implementation). At the same time Dw was cut to a shadow of its former self, but never recovered any meaningfull purpose to take-up the challenge of implementing any further w3c specs beyond what CS6 offered, (in fact some were dummed down or removed).