Adobe Animate will be discontinued • Hacker News Board

Re: Adobe Animate will be discontinued

#41

Post by WillAdams » Thu, Feb 05, 2026, 12:05 PM UTC

spacebacon wrote: post #9

ciroduran wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Indeed, Flash UI is really its strenght, the way to draw and manipulate curves, I don't think I've seen anything like it after that, although illustrating is not my trade. However, it is possible to do cool procedurally generated stuff with the drawing API, or use plain normal bitmap graphics to do things.

Adobe’s pen tool across all titles is second to none. There is so much value in just that one tool done right.

I far prefer the pen tool in Macromedia Freehand/MX, to say nothing of the other drawing modes which it offered (and which Adobe later copied).

I might still have an InDesign Subscription if Adobe had just rolled all of Freehand's capabilities into it --- instead, I keep a Windows computer for it and a stylus (despite Windows having crippled stylus functionality in Windows 10 Fall Creators Update) --- which reminds me, stylus usage in Waterfox broke again and I have to look up how to fix it (again).

Re: Adobe Animate will be discontinued

#42

Post by latexr » Thu, Feb 05, 2026, 12:18 PM UTC

HelloUsername wrote: post #37

"We are not discontinuing or removing access to Adobe Animate. Adobe Animate is in maintenance mode for all customers." https://www.reddit.com/r/adobeanimate/comments/1qv5yju/updat...

> What we shared did not meet our standards and caused a lot of confusion and angst within the community.

Absolutely abhorrent communication. There was no “confusion”, they even admit later in the messaging they changed their plans:

> More importantly, Animate will continue to be available for both new and existing users. This is a change from what we communicated in the email yesterday for the status of Adobe Animate, its time-frame, and availability.

Just lead with that, no need to throw sand in people’s eyes.

Re: Adobe Animate will be discontinued

#43

Post by lukan » Thu, Feb 05, 2026, 12:52 PM UTC

stuaxo wrote: post #31

nindalf wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

We need an open source equivalent to the Flash editor (AKA Adobe animate) that uses Ruffle and can output to it.

We have the web, we don't need ruffle, what we need is indeed a open source flash editor. Wick editor was quite close, by outputting standalone html files

https://www.wickeditor.com/

Of course, not at all on the same level like flash was, but some parts worked really nice.

Unfortunately it is abandoned. (I thought about taking it up, but would require lots of effort, basically rewriting core parts)

Re: Adobe Animate will be discontinued

#44

Post by lukan » Thu, Feb 05, 2026, 12:54 PM UTC

hibern8 wrote: post #36

pjc50 wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

https://rive.app

I thought that is only for animation, but can you also script everything like in flash?

(Btw in Flash, even the whole UI of the editor was scriptable, every action visible as a script command)

Re: Adobe Animate will be discontinued

#45

Post by redeeman » Thu, Feb 05, 2026, 1:16 PM UTC

i cant say i miss flash though. it was abused to hell, and the player was a total abomination. perhaps the best thing steve jobs did for the world was kill it off.

this also just goes to show that its reckless to base all your software on a closed platform like that. Sooner or later it will come back to bite you

Re: Adobe Animate will be discontinued

#46

Post by ivm » Thu, Feb 05, 2026, 1:23 PM UTC

lukan wrote: post #44

hibern8 wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

https://rive.app

I thought that is only for animation, but can you also script everything like in flash? (Btw in Flash, even the whole UI of the editor was scriptable, every action visible as a script command)

Yes, Rive launched scripting last year

Re: Adobe Animate will be discontinued

#47

Post by Conan_Kudo » Thu, Feb 05, 2026, 2:11 PM UTC

lukan wrote: post #43

stuaxo wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We need an open source equivalent to the Flash editor (AKA Adobe animate) that uses Ruffle and can output to it.

We have the web, we don't need ruffle, what we need is indeed a open source flash editor. Wick editor was quite close, by outputting standalone html files https://www.wickeditor.com/ Of course, not at all on the same level like flash was, but some parts worked really nice. Unfortunately it is abandoned. (I thought about taking it up, but would require lots of effort, basically rewriting core parts)

The web is awful as a programming environment. It's popular because it's everywhere, not because it's good.

Re: Adobe Animate will be discontinued

#48

Post by mid-kid » Thu, Feb 05, 2026, 2:24 PM UTC

Conan_Kudo wrote: post #47

lukan wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We have the web, we don't need ruffle, what we need is indeed a open source flash editor. Wick editor was quite close, by outputting standalone html files https://www.wickeditor.com/ Of course, not at all on the same level like flash was, but some parts worked really nice. Unfortunately it is abandoned. (I thought about taking it up, but would require lots of effort, basically rewriting core parts)

The web is awful as a programming environment. It's popular because it's everywhere, not because it's good.

I think they mean you don't need ruffle if you can just export to web. The programming environment can be anything, but adding ruffle in the middle when it really doesn't need to be there, does indeed feel a bit tacky. Flash used to be necessary to add functions to browsers that were otherwise impossible, but these days you can do anything in a browser.

Re: Adobe Animate will be discontinued

#49

Post by presbyterian » Thu, Feb 05, 2026, 4:00 PM UTC

WillAdams wrote: post #40

ciroduran wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Indeed, Flash UI is really its strenght, the way to draw and manipulate curves, I don't think I've seen anything like it after that, although illustrating is not my trade. However, it is possible to do cool procedurally generated stuff with the drawing API, or use plain normal bitmap graphics to do things.

There is Wick Editor (which I mentioned elsethread) https://www.wickeditor.com/#/

Unfortunately, it's been abandoned for a while now.

Re: Adobe Animate will be discontinued

#50

Post by WillAdams » Thu, Feb 05, 2026, 5:25 PM UTC

presbyterian wrote: post #49

WillAdams wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is Wick Editor (which I mentioned elsethread) https://www.wickeditor.com/#/

Unfortunately, it's been abandoned for a while now.

That is unfortunate.

Other similar projects?

Another reason for me to knuckle down and write my own (programmable) drawing program....