Future of Animate?

[shasimo]

I'm having some old Actionscript2 apps that I have to convert to HTML5. These apps are for users to design there own wedding rings, and similar stuff, so not much animation is used, but lots of changing images stacked on top of each other like in this one: www.living2gether.dk.

I'm spending a lot of time deciding which way to go, and I have tried out createJS with and without Animate, and also had a look at ZIM, reactJS, Angular etc.

Before making my final choice, I would like to know more about Adobes plans for Animate, and I don't seem to be able to find newer information about this.

Is it something You will put a lot of efforts into developing in future? If yes, whats in store?

Are there any hope of having better support for code hinting and error checking like we had in actionscript when you got a warning in the output panel, if you made a syntax error? I know I can use the console, but sometimes an error prevents the testmovie from opening at all, so nothing can be fetched from the console.  
My code is rather long, so it would be nice to have better assistance for this.

I would also very much like to know if my projects are suited for Animate, or would be better developed outside in pure javascript with maybe createJS.

Thanks

[Colin Holgate · Accepted solution]

Animate would be a good choice because you can reuse all of your earlier work. HTML Canvas doesn't do scenes, so if you used scenes you may need to change the structure of the FLA. CreateJS is half way between the styles of AS2 and AS3, and scripts can't be attached to symbols themselves, they would have to go into the timeline of the symbol, or the main timeline.

Adobe are overdue on giving roadmaps. Some of the future features of AIR have been mentioned, and we know that the Flash Player plugin will stop being developed at the end of 2020. But for Animate itself I'm not sure if there ever is a road map.

Adobe MAX is coming up in three weeks, maybe there will be more information by then. The Animate product manager is giving one of the presentations:

What’s New in Animate CC

[Preran]

Thank you, Colin. I am guessing that this information will be shared during MAX, but to be sure, I will let the product manager know of the expectation.

To reiterate what you said, Adobe Animate continues to be under development.

Thanks,

Preran

[shasimo]

Thanks a lot for this information I don't use scenes, and all my code is in the main timeline, so it should be straight forward then.
I was just wondering if Animate was only intended for small banner ads etc, and my projects might be too big.

Do any of you have any comments on the code hinting and error checking questions?

[Colin Holgate]

I've mainly used it for mobile apps for the last few years, plus some complex HTML5 Canvas work. I haven't done anything as small as an ad banner, but it's great at doing bigger things.

There is code hinting when typing JavaScript in an HTML5 Canvas or WebGL 2D FLA.

Quite a few warnings are shown in the Output Panel when you publish, that can help you to look for problems. It's less easy to do something like the Compiler Errors you get with ActionScript, because your JavaScript may be calling an online library that is loaded by the HTML, and it would be very difficult to buffer all of that external code just to test your own syntax.

If you know how to find the console log in your browser developer tools, also look for Errors. Clicking on an error line will tell you which line of JavaScript is wrong. That's looking at the published code, so you may need to do a find for the code back in Animate, in order to then fix it.

The tools include a debugger panel too.

[shasimo]

Okay - but when I publish with an intended error (like in the code below) to see what happens, the Output panel only gives me the usual:
"WARNINGS:

Frame numbers in EaselJS start at 0 instead of 1. For example, this affects gotoAndStop and gotoAndPlay calls. (46)

Motion tweens are published as frame by frame animations. Use classic tweens where possible. (17)"

And an error like that will not give me anything to test in the browser and the console is therefor empty,

Error for this example:

createjs.Tween.get(mc, {
                    override: true
                })
                    .wait = 300,//(300),
                    .to({
                        alpha: 0
                    }, 400)

It also seems like I have to write with a formating of the lines like this for Animate to accept the code. If I write in one line, I get an error.

[ClayUUID]

Of course you get an error, you have that "//(300)," right in the middle of your code.

[shasimo]

I know - it was intended to provoke an error, so I could explain to Colin what I got in console and the output panel.

[Colin Holgate]

And we all know I need provoking!

You would have to look in the browser developer tools, errors, to see what the error was reporting.

For the usual trick of doing a trace() just to let you know you got that far, you can use console.log(), but you can also use alert("message"). I wish AS3 had that ability!

About the Output Panel warnings, some will always be there (if you have used code you are likely to get the gotoAndStop warning). Others you should learn what they mean. With Motion tweens for example, those can lead to very poor performance, and larger js files. Same is true for custom easing Classic tweens. Using standard easing Classic tweens will give the shortest js file, and the best performance. There are a lot of presets in the standard list, so you may find one that is close enough to your old motion tweens or custom classic tweens.

Watch out too for warnings about filters. You could easily end up with movieclips not animating between you had done something to cause the image to be cached.

[shasimo]

Thanks for being provoked And for giving me answers to almost all of my questions - all, if I can provoke you to answer the last one from yesterday as well?

[Colin Holgate]

Can you repeat the questions you still have?

[shasimo]

Sure - and thanks :

I get the Docs at createjs.com is the reference to use when I want to learn the language, but I think the way You use the code is a little different in some cases in Animate ? For instance the way the above Tween code has to be formatet.

What would be the best resource for learning to use createJS in Animate?

[shasimo]

Update: Now I found out how to see the error - sorry

Last question (maybe 😞 I get the Docs at createjs.com is the reference to use when I want to learn the language, but I think the way You use the code is a little different in some cases in Animate ? For instance the way the above Tween code has to be formatet.

What would be the best resource for learning to use createJS in Animate?

[tonyfrenden]

Lol... Scenes didn't exactly work wonderfully in ActionScript, either.