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 and it was new, but even as a thirty-something I still have had a blast playing with Flash MX Pro (legally acquired, of course).
Flash is so interesting to me, because it is animation first, but the programming was bolted on pretty elegantly. You could animate something using professional tools, highlight it, make it a movie clip, and immediately export it to code and hack against that. Yeah it was hard to maintain for big projects but it was fun how quickly 15 year old tombert could go from a few drawings to a simple game.
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 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
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.
Yes indeed. The web with webgl/webgpu and wasm and all the other webapis has enough power to replace what flash could do since a long time. Just doing it by hand is messy, but as a target plattform it is good enough.
Seems cool. Took a couple minutes how to set up a basic object and do a multiple part bouncing ball tween. Haven't really explored the scripting or export options yet.
The base feature set of a tool like Flash has been stable for well over a decade (maybe even two) now; why has no one spun up some agents and released an open source clone of Flash that runs on all major platforms for everyone to enjoy without giving any money to Adobe?
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.
Headline is out of date.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.
> 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 result.
> 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.
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.
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.
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).
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.
Flash required a browser plugin to work. It was handling video and 3D animation a decade before the <video> and <canvas> elements were added to the HTML5 spec.
Weird coincident.. last I week I installed "Flash MX 2004" in linux using wine. Works flawlessly! Gonna make some cool shit for "newgrounds flash forward 2026"
Context: Flash Forward is a yearly game jam on Newgrounds, where all the games are made in Flash. (They work in all browsers without flashplayer now thanks to Ruffle.)
Discontinuing is fine, the egregious part is not open sourcing it. Huge swathes of internet culture in terms of both story telling, animation and games is locked up in this system they have no interest in.
Either it has value and shouldn't be open sourced in which case why not keep developing it.
If it has no value whats the excuse not open source it as a sign of good will for artists and developers to invest time in your ecosystem, otherwise the message is "If you build with our apps and systems you will be locked out of your work forever when its an inconvenience for us, even if you're paying us hundreds a year"
> 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.
Yeah, and so was Freehand/MX (I was a beta tester for Macromedia and still use it) --- once a complex application is no longer updated for new OS versions, its death knell has sounded, and it's only a matter of time before it can no longer be used (save for in a VM which recreates the environment it was developed for, or on Windows 11 (which is arguably a stack of compatibility layers w/ the attendant performance and reliability hits))
I had a start programming and doing little weird animations back in the early 2000s. Then I could earn a living doing stuff with Actionscript, little games on the web, or profile picture generators; even stuff on the BlackBerry PlayBook, which had support for AIR runtime. I made games with Flash and Actionscript until ~2015. Newgrounds even holds a jam called Flash Forward, in which you submit Flash games https://www.newgrounds.com/collection/flash-forward
I stopped using Flash long before it became Animate. I'm really sad to see it go, and that Adobe has so little love to this important piece of the web and the Internet.
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.
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
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 and it was new, but even as a thirty-something I still have had a blast playing with Flash MX Pro (legally acquired, of course).
Flash is so interesting to me, because it is animation first, but the programming was bolted on pretty elegantly. You could animate something using professional tools, highlight it, make it a movie clip, and immediately export it to code and hack against that. Yeah it was hard to maintain for big projects but it was fun how quickly 15 year old tombert could go from a few drawings to a simple game.
I miss it.
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
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.
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.
Yes indeed. The web with webgl/webgpu and wasm and all the other webapis has enough power to replace what flash could do since a long time. Just doing it by hand is messy, but as a target plattform it is good enough.
Rather a warts-and-all open web than a pay-to-play walled garden where you have to pay the feudal lord a tax for sharecropping on their land.
there are alternatives both in the past (perpetual software) and hopefully in the future
Seems cool. Took a couple minutes how to set up a basic object and do a multiple part bouncing ball tween. Haven't really explored the scripting or export options yet.
They are pretty simple, like in flash. You add a script to a timeline or a object amd if that frame gets played, the script gets executed.
The base feature set of a tool like Flash has been stable for well over a decade (maybe even two) now; why has no one spun up some agents and released an open source clone of Flash that runs on all major platforms for everyone to enjoy without giving any money to Adobe?
You know what? This seems like as good an excuse as any to try out the new Codex release. I'm going to try and see if I can clone it in Rust.
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)
Yes, Rive launched scripting last year
For drawing at least there is:
https://www.wickeditor.com/#/
https://ruffle.rs/compatibility
I know but I was talking about the editor itself, not the resulting applications.
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.
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
Knowing how to finish can be just as important as how to start.
Or, a bad finish can absolutely ruin a good start.
Adobe has no clue how unattractive it is right now.
> "in a year we'll quietly stop any work on it anyway"
Exactly what my guess about this is too. People who rely on Animate shouldn't rest easy just because Adobe backed off this time.
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 result.
> 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.
Kinda like what happened with Xorg. WHOOPS DID I JUST SAY THAT OUT LOUD
People who still move to other options, if you can find something thats offline & local, as Adobe will rethink it in next couple of months again.
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.
Flash editor was the magic
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).
This is very true.
There is Wick Editor (which I mentioned elsethread)
https://www.wickeditor.com/#/
Unfortunately, it's been abandoned for a while now.
There are some forks of it that seem more recent:
1. Candlestick https://github.com/Candlestickers/Candlestick
2. StickmanRed’s Fork https://github.com/StickmanRed/wick-editor
3. This brand new fork: https://forum.wickeditor.com/t/started-my-own-fork-luke-tool...
That is unfortunate.
Other similar projects?
Another reason for me to knuckle down and write my own (programmable) drawing program....
And, of course, Ruffle[1][2] to play them.
[1] https://ruffle.rs/
[2] https://github.com/ruffle-rs/ruffle/
I am using Ruffle to keep my games playable, but AS3 support is still getting there. AS2 support is awesome.
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.
Flash required a browser plugin to work. It was handling video and 3D animation a decade before the <video> and <canvas> elements were added to the HTML5 spec.
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.
Weird coincident.. last I week I installed "Flash MX 2004" in linux using wine. Works flawlessly! Gonna make some cool shit for "newgrounds flash forward 2026"
Context: Flash Forward is a yearly game jam on Newgrounds, where all the games are made in Flash. (They work in all browsers without flashplayer now thanks to Ruffle.)
This year's jam just started:
https://www.newgrounds.com/bbs/topic/1554561/1
Discontinuing is fine, the egregious part is not open sourcing it. Huge swathes of internet culture in terms of both story telling, animation and games is locked up in this system they have no interest in.
Either it has value and shouldn't be open sourced in which case why not keep developing it.
If it has no value whats the excuse not open source it as a sign of good will for artists and developers to invest time in your ecosystem, otherwise the message is "If you build with our apps and systems you will be locked out of your work forever when its an inconvenience for us, even if you're paying us hundreds a year"
"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.
Yeah, and so was Freehand/MX (I was a beta tester for Macromedia and still use it) --- once a complex application is no longer updated for new OS versions, its death knell has sounded, and it's only a matter of time before it can no longer be used (save for in a VM which recreates the environment it was developed for, or on Windows 11 (which is arguably a stack of compatibility layers w/ the attendant performance and reliability hits))
Some more earlier: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46859732
I had a start programming and doing little weird animations back in the early 2000s. Then I could earn a living doing stuff with Actionscript, little games on the web, or profile picture generators; even stuff on the BlackBerry PlayBook, which had support for AIR runtime. I made games with Flash and Actionscript until ~2015. Newgrounds even holds a jam called Flash Forward, in which you submit Flash games https://www.newgrounds.com/collection/flash-forward
I stopped using Flash long before it became Animate. I'm really sad to see it go, and that Adobe has so little love to this important piece of the web and the Internet.
yeah, definitely gonna participate in NG's flash forward
I would love my kids to have access to Flash and learn to build games the way I did. Unfortunately, £32.98/month for Animate is just too expensive.
As far as I know, there is nothing comparable to the Flash experience on the market.
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.
What workflows (similar or any modern practices) exist today - would anyone share their workflow for html/html5/canvas, etc.
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
For a brief time in the early 2000s, there were no words more embarrassing than "skip intro"
There’s a LOTof deeply angry people in YouTube saying how much the hate Adobe for this little show.
They could have at least offered some legacy version for file access