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What To Expect From HTML5
snydeq writes "InfoWorld's Neil McAllister takes a deeper look at HTML5, outlining what developers should expect from this overhaul of HTML — one that some believe could put an end to proprietary Web technologies such as Flash and Silverlight. Among the most eagerly anticipated additions to HTML5 are new elements and APIs that allow content authors to create rich media using nothing more than standards-based HTML. The standard also introduces browser-based application caches, which enable Web apps to store information on the client device. 'But for all of HTML5's new features, users shouldn't expect plug-ins to disappear overnight. The Web has a long history of many competing technologies and media formats, and the inertia of that legacy will be difficult to overcome. It may yet be many years before a pure-HTML5 browser will be able to match the capabilities of today's patchwork clients,' McAllister writes. 'In the end, browser market share may be the most significant hurdle for developers interested in making the most of HTML5. Until these legacy browsers are replaced with modern updates, Web developers may be stuck maintaining two versions of their sites: a rich version for HTML5-enabled users, and a version for legacy browsers that falls back on outdated rendering tricks.'"
In order that HTML 5 may replace Flash on Newgrounds.com, what tool for creating vector animations for HTML 5 is comparable to Adobe Flash CS series?
You might try Adobe Illustrator paired with Ikivo Animator, that's what Adobe recommends anyway.
Big thanks to Apple for standing up to the Flash juggernaut and showing the world we could live without it, thereby paving the way for HTML 5.
And big thanks to Google for creating a non-Flash dependent version of YouTube to help Apple do it, and starting to move YouTube away from Flash in general.
I think you underestimate the "without breaking backwards compatibility" part of this.
XHTML2 was pretty much designed to not work with any existing web infrastructure (either existing content or existing browsers). If you think a parallel web built from the ground up is the way to go, feel free to work on it, but the network effects involved make it a pretty risky prospect.
While the situation RE: Software patents isn't really where Free software enthusiasts would like it(among others, it isn't hard to find people who think that software patents are a serious clusterfuck); there is big difference:
If something is done in flash, it is almost definitely done using a proprietary codec(either one of Adobe's weirdo legacy proprietary codecs, or h264), wrapped in Flash, a proprietary runtime for which no good-enough-to-be-particularly-useful implementations exist. If something is done with an HTML 5 video tag, it will(outside of nests of Free software idealists) almost certainly be h264. However, while the patent situation is a mess, good Free implementations of h264 exist, and Free browsers will be on the leading edge of HTML5 development.
With flash based stuff, it is essentially impossible to function on a Free stack, no matter where you live, what patent licences you either posses or are willing to ignore, or whatever. It just isn't possible. Gnash is Not There Yet, and even if you are willing to go proprietary, Flash pretty much sucks on anything that isn't 32-bit windows, and it's a pit of resource consumption and security flaws even there. Silverlight is incrementally better, with Moonlight covering a greater subset of Silverlight than Gnash does Flash, and it not sucking architecturally as much; but it still doesn't cover enough(and pretty much any Silverlight based media application will be using a patent encumbered codec and/or DRM in any event).
h264/HTML5 still suffers patent encumbrance; but anybody not subject to, or willing to ignore, those patents can have a very functional Free implementation more or less now. That counts for something.
That and Apple is a holder of H.264 and MP4 patents.
Just use anything with SVG support.
And CSS3 has native support for animation control, quite powerful control at that.
Please point me to CSS3's support for interpolation between SVG keyframes. Then please point me to the graphical timeline editor for CSS3 animation. Flash has had both since before it had ActionScript.
The only thing that it doesn't have great support for yet is some of the things that people are used to with Flash development. Preloaders are one thing
HTML5 has onload. Just set the animation to start once all your assets' onload events have fired.
Of course, considering how most of the imagery is usually vectors in Flash games, it shouldn't be too much of a problem.
SVG is bloated unless you gzip it.
It is not significantly worse either. h.264 has a deadline set for when free use ends. That deadline may or may not be pushed back and the royalties may or may not be extortionate. By using Theora, you don't have to worry about that.
http://arstechnica.com/media/news/2010/02/royalty-free-codec-still-needed-despite-no-cost-h264-license.ars
And? Even at one patent that are still heavily invested in H.264, MP4 (which they also hold patents on) and AAC. I see no good reason for them financially to drop all those years of investments in this formats to go to Ogg and Theora.
I've seen these before, and "please e-mail sales" in lieu of a base price usually turns out to be code-word for "if you have to ask, you can't afford it".
According to a review in MacUser, it's £199+VAT (=~ $350 US), or at least that was the price for v1.1 (I think there may have been a few updates since then).
Uh $700 = free? http://www.adobe.com/products/flash/
Adobe has always been good at dev environments. Good, consistent app interfaces on the design side and supportive IDEs on code side. I have little doubt that Adobe sees this situation and isn't doing what they do best. Creating a great development environment for designing, animating and programming HTML5/CSS3. Microsoft is headed that direction with Expression too. If the standards are going to be open, they'll need to provide the most appealing dev tools instead of the shiniest proprietary codec or plugin.