Adobe Edge

Adobe Edge is new a new initiative brought about by Adobe as an alternative to its Flash software. After some research the people at Adobe realized that the types of animations that were once ago could only be accomplished through the use of Flash can now be done through the use of web standards. In particular a combination of HTML5, CSS, and JavaScript. Using these, web developers can create websites without the need to account for the flash plugin.

Adobe has released a beta preview to the software and is currently available for download at http://labs.adobe.com/technologies/edge/. I think this is a step in the right direction in terms of moving forward to a more uniform way of web development. Also it can take some of the workload off of developers, allowing the graphic designers can use Edge to create image sliders, rollovers, and page effects to suit their designs.

Some people have voiced their concern saying although Adobe Edge is a really nice addition to the Adobe Suite, it is going to get annoying when more websites start using transitions and animations just because it is now easy to accomplish. Ultimately going for presentation over content and making every click have a 15 second sliding-fading-etc transition to look cool. Others are concerned about this opening the doors to a new wave of advertisement and spam and slowing browsers. While I think that these are some valid concerns, I say at the end of the day it is the job of the developer to create a rich user experience and not just go for extreme presentation effects without warrant. What do you think?

Coming soon: Adobe Edge Preview

Written By: Le-Andris O. Daniel