The Scalable Vector Graphics format is an open standard for rendering two-dimensional graphics.
It would be nice if we had one of those, but SVG is not it, at least not unless you’re willing to gloss HTML as “an open format for rendering reflowable text”. SVG is a full platform for web applications with fixed-layout graphics and rich animations, essentially Flash with worse development tools.
There have been some attempts to define a subset of SVG that represents a picture, like SVG Tiny, but that feels about as likely to succeed as defining JSON by cutting things out of JavaScript. (I mean, it kind of worked for making EPUB from HTML+CSS... If you disregard all the insane feature variation across e-readers that is.) Meanwhile, other vector graphics formats are either ancient and not very common (CGM, EPS, WMF/EMF) or exotic and very not common (HVIF, IconVG, TinyVG).
(My personal benchmark for an actual vector format would be: does it allow the renderer to avoid knowing the peculiarities of Arabic, Burmese, Devanagari, or Mongolian?)
Me too. Adobe just murdered it. All they had to do was convert the exporter to html5 but they messed it up.
The best thing about flash was that it let non-coders create interactive things. The editor with a timeline + code you could stick to objects was the best feature.
I had to learn to code properly after flash died, which probably was a good thing, but I still miss that way of making things.
They did that...it's called Adobe Animate. It's the same timeline-based animation tool, but now it exports JavaScript, and it's existed as part of the Adobe Suite this whole time. They just renamed it around 2015 to disassociate it from Flash Player.
It wouldn't surprise me if the "issue" were just that piracy isn't as normalized as it was 20 years ago, and there are very few kids/teenagers (or even adults) that can justify $264/yr for one program unless they're using it for business purposes. So young people looking for creative outlets look elsewhere, and they learn those things instead.
The best thing about flash was that it let non-coders create interactive things.
But you are not missing flash, you are Missing Macromedia Director and co. These were wonderful tools, intuitive and easy to use. Flash was an abomination of a format, and it was dragging the web down, also security wise, it's good that Apple and Google killed it.
Comments
It would be nice if we had one of those, but SVG is not it, at least not unless you’re willing to gloss HTML as “an open format for rendering reflowable text”. SVG is a full platform for web applications with fixed-layout graphics and rich animations, essentially Flash with worse development tools.
There have been some attempts to define a subset of SVG that represents a picture, like SVG Tiny, but that feels about as likely to succeed as defining JSON by cutting things out of JavaScript. (I mean, it kind of worked for making EPUB from HTML+CSS... If you disregard all the insane feature variation across e-readers that is.) Meanwhile, other vector graphics formats are either ancient and not very common (CGM, EPS, WMF/EMF) or exotic and very not common (HVIF, IconVG, TinyVG).
(My personal benchmark for an actual vector format would be: does it allow the renderer to avoid knowing the peculiarities of Arabic, Burmese, Devanagari, or Mongolian?)
As I recall, SVG was Adobe attempting to supplant Flash by publishing an open standard. It didn't work at the time, so they just bought Macromedia.
I still miss Flash
Me too. Adobe just murdered it. All they had to do was convert the exporter to html5 but they messed it up.
The best thing about flash was that it let non-coders create interactive things. The editor with a timeline + code you could stick to objects was the best feature.
I had to learn to code properly after flash died, which probably was a good thing, but I still miss that way of making things.
They did that...it's called Adobe Animate. It's the same timeline-based animation tool, but now it exports JavaScript, and it's existed as part of the Adobe Suite this whole time. They just renamed it around 2015 to disassociate it from Flash Player.
It wouldn't surprise me if the "issue" were just that piracy isn't as normalized as it was 20 years ago, and there are very few kids/teenagers (or even adults) that can justify $264/yr for one program unless they're using it for business purposes. So young people looking for creative outlets look elsewhere, and they learn those things instead.
It was too late. The world had moved on by then! The iPhone AppStore launched in 2008 I think and then the momentum was too much.
But you are not missing flash, you are Missing Macromedia Director and co. These were wonderful tools, intuitive and easy to use. Flash was an abomination of a format, and it was dragging the web down, also security wise, it's good that Apple and Google killed it.
They did do that. Or am I missing something?
Much like Newgrounds it is still around.
https://haxe.org/