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Adobe Animate will be discontinued

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Re: Adobe Animate will be discontinued

#21

Post by nindalf »

jonplackett wrote: post #16
tombert wrote: post #15

I am glad to see that they’re backing off from discontinuing. I would really, really like it if they would let me buy it outright instead of subscribing. I’ve mentioned this on here before, but I stand by it: developing Flash is the most fun way I have found to program. Now, part of this is because Flash was one of the first things that I learned to program, so it’s probably a big rose-tinted because i was younger an…

I miss flash too. No other development environment was/is as easy to use. I learning to program with as2 and as3.

If you weren't aware previously, you'll be pleased to learn that you can still program in Flash if you really want to, and distribute your programs on the web. https://ruffle.rs

Re: Adobe Animate will be discontinued

#22

Post by parkersweb »

adzm wrote: post #13

Headline is out of date. They changed their plans. From the link: > We are not discontinuing or removing access to Adobe Animate. Animate will continue to be available for both current and new customers, and we will ensure you continue to have access to your content. There is no longer a deadline or date by which Animate will no longer be available.

I suspect this may be driven by subscription consequences. In the UK consumer rights mean that you're able to cancel a subscription commitment if the offering is materially changed. I used this in the past when Adobe withdrew a product to cancel an annual license I no longer needed mid-term.

Making a zombie product probably has a lower impact on their revenues.

Re: Adobe Animate will be discontinued

#23

Post by lukan »

koolala wrote: post #20
ciroduran wrote: post #5

Notice that it's still very much possible to produce SWF files with languages like Haxe http://haxe.org/ , and there are frameworks that mimic the Flash drawing API like OpenFL https://www.openfl.org/ , there is (or was) a lot of interesting stuff like that happening around.

Can't modern Flash compile to HTML5? Can the open alternatives also do that? I wish SWF became a common HTML5 transpile format.

No, it cannot. It can sort of compile some animations (with the libary EaselJS), but you have to use javascript instead of actionscript - but it is really not the same like it was in flash. Basically it does not work for me and I abandoned Adobe Animate and still looking for replacement of the lost Garden of Flash Utopia.

Re: Adobe Animate will be discontinued

#24

Post by pjc50 »

tombert wrote: post #15

I am glad to see that they’re backing off from discontinuing. I would really, really like it if they would let me buy it outright instead of subscribing. I’ve mentioned this on here before, but I stand by it: developing Flash is the most fun way I have found to program. Now, part of this is because Flash was one of the first things that I learned to program, so it’s probably a big rose-tinted because i was younger an…

Has anyone tried to clone that experience in more modern tooling? It's something that everyone speaks fondly of, and was very successful as a creative tool.

Re: Adobe Animate will be discontinued

#25

Post by pjc50 »

troupo wrote: post #14
adzm wrote: post #13

Headline is out of date. They changed their plans. From the link: > We are not discontinuing or removing access to Adobe Animate. Animate will continue to be available for both current and new customers, and we will ensure you continue to have access to your content. There is no longer a deadline or date by which Animate will no longer be available.

They only "changed" them because it materially affected them. "We're going to provide support and security patches" means "in a year we'll quietly stop any work on it anyway"

There was a cartoon on bluesky with the dialogue:

"we've listened and we're going to keep offering Animate" (crowd cheers)

".. but we're not going to make any changes to the software" (crowd cheers louder)

"wait why are they still cheering"

.. the joke being that the customers don't want the software to materially change, just so long as it continues to run.

Re: Adobe Animate will be discontinued

#26

Post by troupo »

bryant wrote: post #18
troupo wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They only "changed" them because it materially affected them. "We're going to provide support and security patches" means "in a year we'll quietly stop any work on it anyway"

I mean, framed differently: > A material number of customers see Animate as a differentiator from our competitors, so even if we only provide support and security patches, the investment is justified for retention. I don't really think there's a hidden agenda here. The announcement surfaced new information for them, they probably reframed their own analytics and saw insights that backed maintaining Animate as a resul…

> The announcement surfaced new information for them, they probably reframed their own analytics and saw insights

That's such corporate-speak.

It means they don't know their customers at all and/or couldn't care less. They literally told major animation studios that the product is going to be dead in just a month.

And now they slightly backtracked the decision by promising vague support and bug fixes. Internally the product is already dead (otherwise there wouldn't be an announcement), teams disbanded and/or re-organized. They will fund a skeleton crew for "bug fixes", and the product will eventually be broken beyond repair in the same time frame as in the original deprecation notice.

Re: Adobe Animate will be discontinued

#27

Post by troupo »

pjc50 wrote: post #25
troupo wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They only "changed" them because it materially affected them. "We're going to provide support and security patches" means "in a year we'll quietly stop any work on it anyway"

There was a cartoon on bluesky with the dialogue: "we've listened and we're going to keep offering Animate" (crowd cheers) ".. but we're not going to make any changes to the software" (crowd cheers louder) "wait why are they still cheering" .. the joke being that the customers don't want the software to materially change, just so long as it continues to run.

We have to learn that a lot of software can be just that: done, without requiring a continuous of new superfluous features

Re: Adobe Animate will be discontinued

#29

Post by troupo »

koolala wrote: post #20
ciroduran wrote: post #5

Notice that it's still very much possible to produce SWF files with languages like Haxe http://haxe.org/ , and there are frameworks that mimic the Flash drawing API like OpenFL https://www.openfl.org/ , there is (or was) a lot of interesting stuff like that happening around.

Can't modern Flash compile to HTML5? Can the open alternatives also do that? I wish SWF became a common HTML5 transpile format.

HTML 5 offers nothing to match Flash capabilities.

Perhaps you could render to Canvas/WebGL/WebGPU, but you still need to reproduce the entire engine there.

Re: Adobe Animate will be discontinued

#30

Post by amatheus »

If AI is all the thing people keep saying someone should be able to develop an Animate/Flash clone, right? Given the reaction to its discontinuation, how people seem to depend on it, and how much content is out there it seem like the incentives do exist.
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