Adobe Shows HTML5 Support With Edge Tool Preview

Adobe has released its first public preview of Edge, a new tool that will let users create interactive web content and games in the emerging HTML5 standard rather than Adobe' own proprietary Flash format. Adobe is seeking to mimic the "familiar look and feel of other Adobe products" with Edge, complete with timelines and drawing tools reminiscent of Flash, to edit native HTML documents using Javascript and CSS3, as well as popular add-ons like WebKit and jQuery. The free preview, available for download now on PC and Mac platforms, currently only allows users to test animation tools, though coding and interactivity support are planned for addition later this year ahead of a planned 2012 full release. The highly interactive HTML5 standard is slowly gaining strength as an alternative for web-based game development over the industry-standard Flash, partly because of Apple's famous decision not to support the Flash format in its popular iOS products. HTML5 content created in Edge will work on Apple's mobile Safari browser, as well as desktop browsers like Internet Explorer, Firefox and Chrome without additional plug-ins. In an open response to Apple released last year, Adobe's co-founders warned that "no company — no matter how big or how creative — should dictate what you can create, how you create it, or what you can experience on the web."