Adobe Debuts Preview Version of 'Adobe Edge' for Creating HTML5 Web Animations

Adobe today announced the launch of an early preview version of a new application called Adobe Edge, which is designed to allow web developers to easily create animations and other motion-based content using HTML5, CSS and JavaScript.

Calling Edge a "fast and lightweight professional-grade tool", Adobe is positioning the new software as a complement to its Flash and Dreamweaver offerings for Web-based content production.

The Adobe Edge preview works natively with HTML. It enables users to add motion to existing HTML documents without hampering design integrity of CSS-based layouts, and it also enables users to easily create visually rich content from scratch, using familiar drawing tools that produce HTML elements styled with CSS3. Users can import standard Web graphics assets such as SVG, PNG, JPG and GIF files and style them using CSS3. The design stage utilizes WebKit to enable design, preview and manipulation of content with incredible fidelity. The innovative timeline feature is both familiar for creative professionals and breaks new ground in animation productivity to enable users to define and customize motion applied to HTML elements with extreme precision.

Adobe is pushing out Edge in a pre-beta version, earlier than usual in order to allow users to offer maximum feedback to help shape the final product. Adobe Edge is free to download during this preview period.

Apple has famously refused to offer support for Adobe's Flash technology on its iOS devices, instead encouraging developers to turn toward newer standards-based options such as HTML5. For its part, Adobe has worked to embrace HTML5 and other standards, introducing a Flash-to-HTML5 converter and building out HTML5 development tools into its other software products.